Welcome to Fully Equipped’s weekly Tour equipment report. Every Friday of PGA Tour weeks (plus other times, if news warrants), GOLF equipment editor Jack Hirsh runs you through some of the biggest news surrounding golf clubs on Tour, including changes, tweaks and launches.
With just three weeks before his first major title defense, J.J. Spaun is benching the most notable club from his breakthrough victory.
Not only is his new OZ.1i HS a completely different shape and heel shafted as opposed to the center-shafted DF3, but it also has a different face with L.A.B.’s steel milled insert.
But through two rounds at Colonial, Spaun is eight under and gaining more than a shot on the field with the new flatstick. So clearly it’s working.
That’s a marked improvement for Spaun on the greens this season. Despite winning the U.S. Open with that memorable 64-foot bomb on the 72nd hole to walk it off, Spaun has struggled with his putting since. Even with his win at the Valero Texas Open less than two months ago, Spaun is losing more than a half shot on the greens, ranking 155th in SG: Putting.
“I found myself kind of resenting my putter at times when I’m out on the course,” Spaun said Friday after his second-round 68 in Fort Worth. “That’s been the only issue all year. My ball striking’s been pretty solid. The weeks that I putt just slightly better than average, I contend. Valero, I won and I was not even like that high in putting.”
L.A.B. co-founder Sam Hahn told GOLF the swap had less to do with the feel and release of the putter, but rather Spaun’s alignment. Spaun’s DF3 sported a platinum finish that had started to wear down in the year-and-a-half he’d been using it, especially as he practices in the Arizona sun at home. It got to the point where Spaun couldn’t see the alignment aid.
L.A.B.’s Liam Bedford worked with Spaun last week in Arizona to find a new gamer, and the OZ.1i HS, L.A.B.’s first-ever heel-shafted design, was the decisive winner.
“Despite the fact that the face rotation and all that stuff was on par with his DF3, he just loved the way it looked and had confidence setting up with it and knew where he was looking,” Hahn said. “All of us golf psychos know what that journey’s like, and sometimes just a fresh look can change everything.”
Hahn pointed out that the advantage L.A.B. has is that all of its putters have the same torque profile. So it was really just finding a visual Spaun liked because the performance would match.
It’s heel-shafted. It’s still L.A.B. Heel-shafted putters have been around forever. No reason they shouldn’t be balanced. OZ.1i HS is the first heel-shafted putter with Lie Angle Balance, giving golfers the traditional look so many love with the ease of use that defines L.A.B.
This isn’t just an OZ.1 i with a different neck. Lie Angle Balance demands precision, so we re-engineered the OZ.1 i chassis for a no-compromise heel-shafted design. Our proprietary aluminum riser connects the shaft to the head in a way that maintains Lie Angle Balance and delivers the same forgiveness as the OZ.1i.
Golfers who prefer a heel-shafted look no longer have to compromise on performance. And because it’s a L.A.B., you can count on every putter being individually built and balanced. With OZ.1i HS, it’s not where the shaft goes. It’s where the ball goes.
The OZ.1i HS also has a firmer steel insert than the grooved aluminum face on his DF3, but Spaun tested that insert earlier this year in a DF3i, ironically, the week he won at Valero.
He did make one spec change, now going to a putter with 0 shaft lean, compared to the 2˚ on his previous gamer. “After the U.S. Open last year, there was kind of a gentle decline in some of his stats and then this year more of the same,” Hahn said. “So you build up some — I don’t want to say scar tissue — but just a bunch of thoughts and ideas about what’s going on, and then you put a new putter in play and it just kind of wipes the slate clean.”
After two rounds, Spaun sounded pretty confident the OZ.1i HS would be in the bag for his title defense in three weeks at Shinnecock.
“It’s good to switch it up and see it kind of solidify that it was a good decision these first two rounds and hopefully keep it going this weekend, next week, and keep it into going into the U.S. Open,” he said.
Aberg finally ditches blade for trending Scotty prototype
One of the five players in the top 25 of the Official World Golf Ranking still using a blade putter has finally relented this week.
Ludvig Aberg switched out of his longtime Odyssey Ai-One No. 1 gamer for a new Scotty Cameron Phantom 3.2 prototype mallet.
In-hand look at Aberg's new Phantom 3.2 mallet which does indeed have the SCS insert.
At the Genesis Invitational, Aberg was asked why he still uses a blade and claimed, “it’s all I’ve ever known.” Now he finally knows something different.
The still unreleased Phantom 3.2 is definitely on the smaller side as mallets go. While we don’t have information on the prototype (which first surfaced on Tour late last season), it wouldn’t be a shock to learn the putter has a forward CG placement with the goal of appealing to lifelong blade players. This also appears to be the goal of TaylorMade’s unreleased 2026 Spider Tour V, which has a very similar shape and profile.
One thing Aberg also mentioned at the Genesis, the same week he tested a custom-built Phantom 3 prototype, was that he’s always preferred a soft insert. His new Cameron fits that bill with the inclusion of the Studio Carbon Steel Chain-Link milled insert.
After ranking 86th in SG: Putting in 2025 and 59th this season while experimenting with different lofts on his Odyssey blade, Aberg ranked 9th in the category this week after a 66-68 start in Fort Worth.
Also have a look at Ryan Gerard's Phantom 3 that he's gone back to this week.
He was 17-for-17 inside 15 feet in round 1 with this putter that he first used last fall, including at his Masters-clinching second-place effort in Mauritius. He picked up more than 4 shots on the… pic.twitter.com/JLnaMSrili
He also wasn’t the only player rolling the rock well with the Phantom 3 shape. Ryan Gerard went back to the Phantom 3 proto he first used at the end of last season, including his Masters-clinching runner-up in Mauritius, and promptly poured in all 17 of his attempts from inside 15 feet in Round 1 at Colonial.
Still no word on a release date for the Phantom 3, but it’s certainly generating some buzz in the meantime during one of Cameron’s longest seeding processes in recent memory.
Michael Kim’s Qi4D comes full circle
Last month, Michael Kim found himself in a spot of bother, needing a replacement fairway wood on the eve of the RBC Heritage.
He ended up using Max Homa’s Qi4D 3HL that week, and that appears to have turned into a brand new Qi4D for Kim this week.
Remember when Michael Kim borrowed Max Homa's Qi4D 4-wood at the RBC Heritage?
Kim ended up really liking it after the first round and asked for one in his spec.
Now it seems Kim has put the new Qi4D 3HL in the bag this week. This time it has Kim's standard Graphite Design Tour… pic.twitter.com/0G7IeDHNwm
Kim’s Qi10 gamer broke on Wednesday afternoon at Harbour Town six weeks ago and he didn’t notice it until he reached the 18th tee of his final practice round — long after the equipment trucks to service him with a new one had departed for the following week’s event in New Orleans.
Kim had a backup Qi10 sent to him from his locker at his home club in Dallas, but discovered it was too upright on Thursday morning. Luckily, he ended up playing with Homa’s Qi4D 3HL.
Kim later wrote that several other pros offered their backup 3-woods to him, but Homa’s seemed to work the best, despite having a wildly different shaft, a Ventus Black 8-X with Velocore+ compared to his usual Graphite Design Tour AD UB-7 X.
PROVEN RECIPE
TaylorMade Fairways have dominated on Tour for over a decade because of their unique performance recipe, which enables maximum distance and versatility.
The Qi4D fairway is designed for golfers who want the most advanced technology while still prioritizing versatility and control with amazing distance.
ADJUSTABLE PERFORMANCE
Utilizing a single Trajectory Adjustment System weight (8g x1) provides the golfer a more mass efficient way to adjust flight, spin and swing weight.
4° loft sleeve can be used to adjust loft, lie and face angle for optimized flight and is available in all lofts.
REFINED ATTRIBUTES, BIG CHANGES
Engineers conducted an objective analysis of all the performance attributes and discovered new methods to enhance performance and confidence.
Sit points, lie angles, address views, and center of gravity locations were all updated based on Tour feedback and the expertise of leading fitters worldwide, ensuring the optimal fairway across skill levels.
TOUR-PROVEN TECHNOLOGIES
New and improved cut-through Speed Pocket™ protects ball speed and reduces spin on low-face strikes.
Advanced CAD modeling creates a design with a clean and powerful sound, a foundation for TaylorMade fairway performance.
Twist Face™ features corrective face curvature designed to provide straighter shots on mishits.
Multi-Material Construction allows engineers to maximize performance by increasing discretionary weight.
After playing the first round, he said he really liked it, enough to even ask TaylorMade to build him one, he wrote on Thursday. He hit 3/4 fairways with the club and gained .32 shots when playing it off the tee. But he wrote Sunday that the honeymoon phase ended by the weekend and he used a different fairway wood for the final round.
But he still did ask for a new Qi4D to be built for him, this time in his spec with the Tour AD UB-7 X shaft he typically plays.
That club ended up in the bag in Fort Worth for Kim as he opened with rounds of 70 and 67.
Check this out
This section is dedicated to cool photos we’ve snapped recently on Tour, but haven’t had a reason to share yet. This week, check out Akshay Bhatia’s prototype Callaway 2-wood he reshafted this week.
Peep the loft!Jack Hirsh/GOLF
Odds and Ends
Some other gear changes and notes we’re tracking this week.
Jack Hirsh is the Associate Equipment Editor at GOLF. A Pennsylvania native, Jack is a 2020 graduate of Penn State University, earning degrees in broadcast journalism and political science. He was captain of his high school golf team and recently returned to the program to serve as head coach. Jack also still *tries* to remain competitive in local amateurs. Before joining GOLF, Jack spent two years working at a TV station in Bend, Oregon, primarily as a Multimedia Journalist/reporter, but also producing, anchoring and even presenting the weather. He can be reached at jack.hirsh@golf.com.
