If you caught any of Jason Dufner shooting 66-68 on the weekend at The Players, you might have been intrigued by the blades the Auburn man was carving up TPC Sawgrass with.

GolfWRX members, not surprisingly, spotted the switch from his previous gamers over the weekend, eventually identifying Dufner’s irons as National Custom Works products.

We reached out to NCW to learn more about Dufner’s new weaponry, and company co-founder Patrick Boyd was kind enough to share some details.

BA: So Jason Dufner puts your clubs in the bag and lights it up on the weekend. How did this happen?

PB: I got an email from him a while ago…I saw the email and I laughed. I was like, ‘Yeah. OK. Sure, buddy.’ But I wrote an email back and said, “If this is you, I’d love to work with you on something.’ He gave me his number, we got in touch…scheduled an appointment with Don [White]. We spent an afternoon working with him on some sample clubs, and it’s kind of gone from there.

I text with him [Dufner] pretty regularly, and I’d heard from him the clubs were a couple of weeks out from making the bag, and he texted me Friday and said, ‘They’re going in the bag this weekend.’ And I hadn’t been paying attention to the leaderboard, so I thought he didn’t make the cut and he was just going home to mess around with them. Then, I’m watching Saturday and he shoots 66!

BA: So he just put them in the bag in the middle of the tournament? Crazy.

PB: Yeah. And the other interesting thing is, he’s a client like any of my other clients: he pays for his golf clubs. We don’t have a contract with him. He’s all about playing the best equipment that works for him.

BA: He insists on paying? Wow. So what was Jason Dufner looking for when he came to you initially, and what did you end up delivering?

PB: He’s been trying a lot of different stuff. He doesn’t have a contract right now. So, I asked him during that process what was happening and what he was seeing, and it became apparent that the soles on the irons he was playing were digging in too much. His spin rates were a little bit high, which to me indicates he was hitting it higher on the face than he’d like to. That was the beginning of the conversation. He was really, really thorough. He knew all his numbers and he knew exactly what he was talking about.

Initially, we met down at Albany. I had him bring what he was playing and what had been successful for him. Me and Don had a look at what was going on. It became clear pretty quickly what we needed to do as far as the sole configuration. That’s what he was fighting: the bottom of his golf clubs weren’t matching up with his angle of attack.

That was the first step. We made a couple of samples for him to take home…I got about two hours down the road and my phone rang. It was Dufner saying, “I hit balls with them. Everything is great. Just make this one little change,” and I got everything in to Don.

The first set we made for him, this is kind of interesting, when he told us about the trajectory he wanted and what he had in mind, Don looked at him and said, ‘Man, you want some blades!’ And he hadn’t played blades since he was in college. But the first project we worked on with our client were cavity backs.

He worked with them on Trackman and his numbers were really good, but the thing that was interesting to me was we used the smaller cavity back we work with and he thought it was a little too long heel-to-toe for him, so he asked me to make him a set of blades. So, we talked about that project…and once we had the sole knocked out and knew what he needed there, as well as what his preferred toe shape is, his preferred aesthetics, the offset he likes, it was pretty easy to put a set together for him.

The 4 and 5-iron are kind of a lower CG profile, and the 6-iron through pitching wedge is more of a mid-CG profile. He just wanted something to kind of knock it down and flight it a little bit flatter with the 6 through pitch, and then with the 4 and 5, he was looking for something a little easier to launch and hold greens with. Kind of a mixed muscle setup.

BA: It looks like he has Auburn colors on the ferrules? And can you confirm the stamping?

PB: Yep. I designed those ferrules for him. And the irons have the NCW star stamp in the toe of the muscle, and then we have the [Jason Dufner] Foundation logo. Then, the letters on the sole of the golf clubs are his dad’s name.

PB: Well, I’ll reiterate, what I thought was just fascinating was, when we initially had the conversation, he really wasn’t sure about working with blades. But once you get the sole profile knocked out for somebody and they’re not fighting the sole of the club…I mean, to me, it speaks volumes that once you get a set of blades in his hands with the correct sole profile it made such a difference in just his initial reaction to wanting to talk about blades…it’s just a testament to the importance of fitting somebody, getting the right sole for their angle of attack, tendencies, and conditions.

For more about National Custom Works, well, works, check out our Peter Schmitt’s talk with Patrick Boyd last month.

EDIT: Patrick sent Dufner’s full spec sheet along

Make up: 4-P Standard Flatback

Muscle: PMB Long Iron muscle with straight line 4/5, Phatty ’53 (PJB) muscle 6/7, Phatty ’53 (PJB) muscle but slightly higher than 6/7 for 8-P

Shape: duplicate samples

Grind: duplicate samples. Client noted modification per our conversation, please adjust accordingly

Loft: 23/28/32/36/40/44/48

Lie: 59.5/60/60.5/61/61.5/62/62.5

Offset: duplicate samples

Weights: D-3 (-2g for chrome) 50g grip, 38.5/38/37.5/37/36.5/36/35.75″ cut length

Finish: Dull Satin, prep for chrome

Stamping: 1/4″ letters 4 (F), 5 (R), 6 (A), 7 (N), 8 (K), 9 (E), P (D) on toe side of sole, DW on heel side of sole, JD logo stamp on muscle heel side, Star N logo on muscle toe side

Paintfill: none

Ferrule: Custom Auburn