The important lesson you should learn from Camilo Villegas’ unusual bag setup

Let’s face it: Tour players have bag setups we can learn a great deal from in terms of strategy, set up and optimization.

But you have to have a trained eye. After all, they’re Tour players, which means their weaknesses are … less obvious than yours or mine. You often can’t look at a bag at first glance and identify exactly what that player struggles with or is trying to mitigate. Deeper dives are usually needed to get the full picture.

But there is a bag that tells a pretty obvious story from the moment you see it. It’s not often that you see the set-up of a Tour winner know immediately it’s built around one main thing: getting the ball in the air and keeping it there.

Sound familiar? You and Camilo Villegas have more in common than you think.

Villegas has always been a player who does whatever it takes to perform, whether it’s in the gym, on the mental side, or, in this case, with his equipment. But the 5-time PGA Tour winner does live on an island when it comes to his bag set-up. Bags like his you would see more on the Champions Tour or your local country club than on the PGA Tour.

Here’s his bag set-up:

Titleist GT3 Custom Driver

GT3 – Speed-Tuned Distance & Control GT3 offers Titleist’s boldest combination of power and personalization. With a speed-tuned design that allows you to precisely match performance to your most frequent contact location, you can make your biggest drives even bigger while taking total control over flight and shaping. For players with a relatively consistent impact location, GT3 offers a precisely adjustable CG Track to max out distance and directional control. Seamless Thermoform Crown A reimagined ultra-lightweight design, born from a new Proprietary Matrix Polymer. The tunable acoustic properties of this unique composite allow Titleist engineers to realize new material gains while maintaining our signature sound and feel. All wrapped in a clean look that inspires total confidence. Split Mass Construction A breakthrough in internal weighting unlocks longer drives and enhanced directional control in GT3. The Adjustable CG Track now sits closer to the face for more dynamic CG control, while additional discretionary mass is pushed to the back of the club to maintain optimal stability through impact. Advanced Aerodynamics GT3 features a new raised tail contour that represents a dramatic shift in driver aerodynamics. Previously impossible to execute due to design constraints, this advanced shaping results in a driver that swings faster while still providing optimal CG control.

$649 from Fairway Jockey

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TaylorMade Qi35 Custom Fairway Wood

$349.99 from Fairway Jockey

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Titleist GT2 Custom Hybrid

$329 from Fairway Jockey

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Srixon ZXi5 Custom Irons

$185.71 from Fairway Jockey

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Titleist Vokey SM10 Raw Custom Wedge

For every shot, every lie, every course, there’s a grind fit for your swing. Finding the right grind to match your swing and playing conditions will give you the best turf interaction, contact and shot performance. Master Craftsman Bob Vokey has spent decades crafting, developing and improving his tour proven grinds to fit players of all levels. Anyone can manufacture a wedge, but it takes a master to turn a piece of high-performance technology into an instrument of creative control. Bob’s six tour-proven grinds are designed to offer maximum creativity, versatility and consistency, all meticulously developed through years of working with the best players in the world. PROGRESSIVE CENTER OF GRAVITY SM9 features a progressive center of gravity (CG) throughout the lofts, which optimizes ball flight, accuracy and forgiveness. Using tapered top lines and varied hosel lengths, the Vokey R&D team has raised the height of the CG in the higher lofts, which promotes a lower, more controlled flight. The CG is also forward of the face, resulting in increased MOI, exceptional feel and a club face that simply wants to square up at impact. SPIN MILLED GROOVES SM9’s patented Spin Milled grooves are meticulously engineered through a new cutting process to maximize spin and durability. The process starts by cutting the face perfectly flat with a high-speed saw. Then every groove is individually cut based on loft and finish; low lofts (46°-54°) are designed with narrower, deeper grooves, while higher lofts (56°-62°) have wider, shallower grooves. Micro-grooves are individually cut in between grooves, which maximize spin on partial shots. A proprietary heat treatment is applied to the impact area which doubles the durability of the groove without impacting feel, making it the most durable groove in golf. The process is only complete when every Vokey wedge is 100% inspected for utmost quality and performance.

$225 from Fairway Jockey

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What’s going on

Villegas really leans the shaft at impact and has always launched the ball low. Couple that with the fact that he doesn’t have crazy speed (170.6 mph average), and suddenly you see why Villegas needs to focus his attention on getting the ball in the air.

One of Camilo’s fitters told me the challenge of Villegas’ bag is keeping his driver launch at least 9 degrees. For context, typical launch on Tour is 11-13 degrees. Rory McIlroy lives around 12-14 degrees. Villegas also needs spin, which explains his ProV1X ball choice and very lofted wood and iron set-up.

Villegas’ shaft selection is where things get really interesting. His HZURDUS Black and PX are both lower launch/lower spin profiles, but Villegas opts for a softer flex (6.0 flex instead of 6.5 in his woods, and 6.5 at 115G in the irons) to keep spin and launch from overcooking the other way. This is the hinge point of his gear setup: While he needs as much launch and spin as possible, he also needs a lever somewhere to bring it all together. In this case, his shaft profiles play a critical role.

Loft Everywhere

Loft is where Villegas’ gear setup gets interesting. Let’s break down his set by loft:

Driver: 11 degrees set at 10.25 with weight back
3-wood: 16.5 degrees with weight back
7-wood: 21 degrees with weight back
5-hybrid: 23.25 degrees
4-iron: 25 degrees
5-iron: 28 degrees
6-iron: 32 degrees
7-iron: 36 degrees
8-iron: 40 degrees
9-iron: 44 degrees
PW: 48 degrees

For the Gen X players among us, those lofts look like something we would have played when balata balls were a thing. As the ball changed to lower spin and higher launch, lofts went down to something about 2-3 degrees stronger than that.

What you can learn

There are ways to optimize your setup if you learn your swing’s non-negotiables. In Villegas’ case, he makes sure his set has a ton of loft and plenty of spin to navigate his swing’s more de-lofted tendencies. It’s called hedging your bets. You never want to play with clubs that live on the razor’s edge of perfect and disaster. Villegas opts for a surplus of loft and spin to give himself a margin for error.

Is your bag set up to weather any storm? If the answer is yes, great! If the answer is no and you’re a player who hits it low, check out Villegas’ setup for some cues on how to fix it.

Want to overhaul your bag for 2025? Find a club-fitting location near you at True Spec Golf.