Fully Equipped mailbag: How many tour players use 14 clubs made by one manufacturer?

Welcome to another edition of the Fully Equipped mailbag, an interactive GOLF.com series in which our resident dimplehead (a.k.a., GOLF’s managing editor of equipment, Jonathan Wall) fields your hard-hitting gear questions. 

What percentage of tour players play all 14 clubs by one manufacturer? — Be the Dice (Instagram)

This question was posed to us on the latest episode of GOLF’s Fully Equipped podcast. Without doing my research in advance (big mistake), I went ahead and blurted out 20 percent with confidence. After doing some research, I’d like to revise my answer and side with my gear colleague Andrew Tursky: It’s closer to 30 percent, possibly even touching 35-plus percent depending on the week.

What changed my mind? At the moment, 19 of the top 50 players in the world are using 14 clubs from one manufacturer. I was never great at math, but that comes out to 38 percent.

Is it a small sample size? Sure. But I think it’s a realistic snapshot of where we’re at in the golf equipment landscape at the moment.

Full bag equipment deals still exist, but the percentage using gear exclusively tied to one brand has been in decline since 2017. Nike no longer has a presence in the gear space, while TaylorMade consolidated its staff several years ago. Titleist, Callaway and Ping are well-represented and have plenty of staffers using their gear, but that’s the extent of OEMs with what I’d deem a sizable tour presence.

More players are testing the free agency waters, which always brings the percentage of full bag deals down. Not only that, a large majority of brands actually allow players a bit of wiggle room when it comes to their setup, meaning a “full bag” deal might consist of just 11 clubs. That leaves a player with three clubs to play with in the event they already have a wedge or putter from another brand that’s working. Flexibility is key.

Ping’s deal with Tony Finau is a perfect example. The equipment manufacturer normally requires staffers to play 11 Ping clubs including the putter. However, when it came to working a deal with Finau, Ping brass decided to make an exception, offering Finau a multi-year club contract that allowed him to play a non-Ping putter. In this instance, flexibility paid off at the negotiating table.

As for the rising stars and elite players, lucrative full bag deals will always be there. Those are the names moving the needle and bringing some semblance of a return on investment. But the number of players who actually fall into this category is small. And I’d argue it’s only gotten smaller with the contraction of tour staffs and budgets for club endorsement deals.

All that being said, there will always be a place for 13- or 14-club deals in the professional ranks. But if I was going to make a prediction on what the tour gear landscape looks like in 10 years, I think you’ll see fewer full bag deals. The guaranteed money isn’t near as good as it was a decade ago, and that could sway some to take less (or nothing at all) to play what they want.

To hear more gear insights from Jonathan Wall and True Spec’s Tim Briand, subscribe and listen each week to GOLF’s Fully Equipped podcast: iTunes | SoundCloud | Spotify | Stitcher