The post Why Tommy Fleetwood is playing 2 clubs that fly same distance | Tour Report appeared first on Golf.

The post Why Tommy Fleetwood is playing 2 clubs that fly same distance | Tour Report appeared first on Golf.

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.

Despite the move to breezy links golf this week at the Genesis Scottish Open, Tommy Fleetwood is still playing a club designed to hit moon balls.

Yes, Fleetwood still has his trusty 9-wood in the bag at Renaissance Club and plans to keep it in the bag for next week’s Open Championship as well. But that doesn’t mean his bag setup is unchanged.

This week, Fleetwood has added one of his TaylorMade GAPR Lo utility irons (a 3-iron loft) from 2018 while dropping his 56-degree wedge, something he did earlier this year.

“He thinks that the 9-wood is just too valuable to take out, but he needs a club that he can hit off the tee and into greens with a really low trajectory,” said TaylorMade Tour rep Adrian Reitveld. “So in reality, the two clubs actually go more or less the same distance, but just have totally different ball-flight characteristics.”

Adding the 3-iron, a club Fleetwood has used off and on for links golf is nothing new. The winds on costal layouts often require players to keep the ball low and that’s most easily achieved with a long iron.

But using a 3-iron in conjunction with a 9-wood that goes the same distance (roughly 235 to 240 yards) but at a completely different trajectory is a new tack. While modern high-lofted fairway woods offer much versatility, it would still be tough for a 9-wood to match the low peak height one could get with a utility iron.

Fleetwood has made moves like this before, including earlier this year in Miami, when he dropped his sand wedge to add a 4-iron between his 9-wood and 5-iron, specifically for long par-3s.

TaylorMade Qi4D Custom Fairway Wood

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.

Buy Now$379.99 from Fairway Jockey

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ALSO AVAILABLE AT: PGA TOUR Superstore, TaylorMade

It’s likely that Fleetwood is adding the GAPR specifically for one hole or shot at Renaissance and plans to do the same next week at the year’s final major in his hometown.

“Both are great off the links turf, and he has a ton of options at that top end of the bag which means he can only play two wedges, a 52 and a 60,” Rietveld said. “In Tommy’s opinion, that’s the perfect set up for Birkdale.”

Plan ahead for utility irons

Like Fleetwood, many other players chose to add 3-irons this week, but most went the more traditional route in dropping a top-of-bag club like a second fairway wood or hybrid.

Fleetwood’s TaylorMade stablemate, Rory McIlroy, is playing one of his older generation P760 utility irons, the 3-iron, that he’s used for years and is dropping his 5-wood to make room for it.

Callaway Apex Custom Utility Iron

Built for better players who demand a precise, high-ball-speed alternative off the tee, the APEX UT delivers control and speed in a sleek, utility iron profile. FLEXCORE TECHNOLOGY Our most advanced, multi-material construction ever in a utility iron, this flexible core design promotes more face flexure and faster ball speeds across the face. FLEXCORE Technology unlocks the face from the sole, allowing for more consistent distance even on off-center hits, helping you attack every shot with confidence. UTILITY Ai FACE DESIGN Engineered specifically for utility irons, this Ai Face design focuses on superior distance control and spin consistency. Provides advanced precision and responsiveness for shot-shaping and trajectory control. FORGED HOLLOW-BODY CONSTRUCTION A multi-piece forged hollow body delivers solid impact feel and sound. Delivers a responsive, solid feel with enhanced vibration dampening, providing the feedback elite players require without compromising the forgiveness expected from a utility iron.

Buy Now$319.99 from Fairway Jockey

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ALSO AVAILABLE AT: PGA TOUR Superstore, Callaway

Likewise Viktor Hovland (Ping iDi), J.J. Spaun (Srixon ZXiU), Aldrich Potgieter (PXG Gen8 X driving iron) and Xander Schauffele (Mizuno Pro 225 Fli-Hi) are all adding utility irons that before this week they have played at times for months or even years.

Min Woo Lee is using a new 20-degree Callaway Apex UT, but it’s a club he’s had ready for a few months so he could test it and even put it in play to get used to it for links golf. He first gamed this club at the U.S. Open.

It goes to show how much work Tour pros do with reps ahead of events. Gone are the days of players heading across the pond for the Open and Scottish Open, only to swap out clubs on the fly. That work is now being done months in advance so there is no adjustment period.

T-Grind (and low bounce) reigns supreme across pond

What do Alex Fitzpatrick, Brooks Koepka and Kurt Kitayama all have in common? Each switched to a Vokey T-Grind lob wedge this week, and the T-Grind is proving a very popular links-golf choice.

Wedges

How the PGA Tour's favorite grind shaped Titleist's Vokey SM11 wedges

By: Jack Hirsh

The T-Grind is most popular grind on the most popular wedge on the PGA Tour in the Vokey SM11, but on firm links turf, the T-Grind becomes even more valuable. Fitzpatrick was previously in the wider-sole A+-Grind, while Koepka was playing the rare B-Grind.

At the 2022 Open Championship at burnt-out St. Andrews, Vokey ran out of T-Grind heads, and the current grind trend began.

Titleist Vokey SM11 Tour Chrome Custom Wedge

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ALSO AVAILABLE AT: PGA TOUR Superstore, Titleist

“There’s this trend at this event with these conditions where a T-Grind really outperforms most of the other grinds we make, just due to how it’s made and what it does,” Vokey wedge rep Aaron Dill said then. “The rear section of the sole of the T grind is the lowest rear section we make, meaning when he opens up the face of the wedge, it sits as close to the ground as anything that we build in the Vokey line. So for guys to say, ‘This one fits me the best here,’ it makes a lot of sense.”

Notable names who are already using the T-Grind include Scottie Scheffler, Justin Thomas, Xander Schauffele, Patrick Cantlay, Patrick Reed, Min Woo Lee and Fleetwood. Of that list, only Thomas is actually contracted to play Vokey wedges, which led the lob, sand and gap wedge count this week with 235 in play, or 52 percent of the field.

In a similar vein, Rory McIlroy has also made a wedge change this week, going to a lower bounce TaylorMade MG4 lob wedge from his MG5 gamer.

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 Rory McIlroy’s driver as he’s second in the field this week in SG: OTT.

Odds and Ends

Some other gear changes and notes we’re tracking this week.

Srixon launched new ZXi RKT fairway woods and hybrids with one model in each category … Lucas Glover added the new RKT 3-wood to his bag … At the ISCO Championship, Ryan Brehm (ZXi RKT), Sean Crocker (ZXi RKT LS), Brandon Robinson Thompson (ZXi RKT), all put the new Srixon driver in play … Patrick Reed is using a mallet for just the second time in his career, switching from a Scotty Cameron Tour Rat 1.5 to a new Phantom 12.5 Tour Prototype.

3 things you should read/watch

A selection of GOLF content from the past week that may interest you.

The 3 biggest equipment changes of 2026 … so far – Look back at the gear changes that not only made headlines, but also lead to huge wins.

My iron journey has been an experiment on my game | Fully Fit 2026 – Johnny Wunder details the journey he’s gone through to find the best sets of irons for his game. It seems like there’s more than one.

How to find the right Vokey Wedgeworks grind for your game – Jake Morrow gets led through the Vokey WedgeWorks grind options to see what fits his game the best.

The author welcomes your comments at Jack.Hirsh@golf.com.

Want to overhaul your bag in 2026? Find a club-fitting location near you at True Spec Golf.

The post Why Tommy Fleetwood is playing 2 clubs that fly same distance | Tour Report appeared first on Golf.

The post Looking back at busy month of June gear moves | Tour Report appeared first on Golf.

The post Looking back at busy month of June gear moves | Tour Report appeared first on Golf.

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 several big names taking the week off after a run of two Signature Events and a major in four weeks, the John Deere Classic is a slower one on the gear moves.

We’ll still have a summary of any news we hear of in the odds and ends section of this week’s Tour Report, but after a busy month, we felt the holiday weekend gave us a great opportunity to look back at several high-profile gear changes from the past month.

The Memorial (June 4-7): Cameron Young’s GTS3 move

Titleist’s GTS drivers exploded onto the Tour in March, with more than 60 players making the switch in the first two months.

But the biggest conversion came at the beginning of the month at the Memorial when Cameron Young switched into the Titleist GTS3 driver.

Young is the first player ranked inside the top 10 of the Official World Golf Ranking, at No. 3, to add the new driver. Previously, the highest-ranked player was No. 16, Justin Thomas.

The huge benefit of the GTS was the dual weighting system for Young, who needs a little extra launch when paired with his Pro V1x Double Dot prototype golf ball.

“Being able to utilize the dual weighting just lets us kind of get into a really nice in-between spot in terms of launch and spin for him,” Titleist’s J.J.Van Wezenbeeck told GOLF.

Because the GTS has both an adjustable front track weight and an adjustable rear flat weight, Titleist was able to put an extra two grams in the rear of Young’s new GTS3, which was just enough to give him the extra launch he needed, while staying at the 10-degree loft.

Young has remained firmly in the top 10 of Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee since the move and was fourth in the field last week at the Travelers.

Read more here

Titleist GTS3 Custom Driver

Buy Now$699.00 from Fairway Jockey

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ALSO AVAILABLE AT: PGA TOUR Superstore, Titleist

Cameron Young’s GTS3 specs
Titleist GTS3 10.0
SureFit Hosel Setting: A1
SureFit CG Setting: 10g N track, 7g rear
Shaft: Mitsubishi Diamana PD 60 TX

RBC Canadian Open (June 11-14): Viktor Hovland’s forced driver switch

Viktor Hovland had to force himself to finally retire his longtime Ping G425 LST gamer.

When Hovland made the trip up to Canada for the RBC Canadian Open after three weeks off, he did so with just one driver: a new G440 LST with a Fujikura Ventus TR Black 6-X VeloCore+ shaft.

“That’s one way to switch,” Ping Tour Rep Kenton Oates told GOLF. “Leave your security blanket in Oklahoma and call it a day.”

Hovland had been working on the switch with Ping reps since the beginning of May and it paid off big time three weeks later at the Travelers Championship, where Hovland led the field in SG: OTT and ended up winning in a playoff over Scottie Scheffler.

Read more here

PING G440 LST Custom Driver

The G440 driver family (MAX, LST, SFT) is optimized to deliver more ball speed through multiple advancements, including PING’s deepest CG in a driver to date and a shallower, thinner face, while continuing to ensure the game-changing forgiveness expected from a PING driver. The G440 LST (Low Spin) design appeals to players with faster swing speeds, providing lower spin and more control in 9° and 10.5° lofts with the three-position back weight. HIGHLY FORGIVING Lighter head weight allows for heavier back weight.  FASTER FACE  Shallow, thinner, face increases ball speed for more distance, higher launch.  SOUND DESIGN New shaping, carbon crown and internal ribs produce muted impact experience.  FREE-HOSEL DESIGN Saves weight to lower CG, increase forgiveness. Allows for more heel-side face flexing for consistent ball speed across face. 

Buy Now$619.00 from Fairway Jockey

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ALSO AVAILABLE AT: PGA TOUR Superstore

Specs
Ping G440 LST 9.0
Actual loft: 7.4
Ping Trajectory 2.0 setting: Flat Dot
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus TR Black w/ Velocore+ 6-X
Tipping: 1″
Length: 45.75″ EOG
Swingweight: D5+
Grip: Golf Pride MCC Black/Blue 60R (+1 wrap)

U.S. Open (June 18-21): Bryson DeChambeau’s TaylorMade Qi4D prototype

Two prototype TaylorMade Qi4D driver heads that popped up on the USGA conforming list Monday of U.S. Open week turned out to be for none other than golf’s mad scientist, Bryson DeChambeau.

But this wasn’t something that TaylorMade started working on just because DeChambeau approached them earlier this year. Developing a product for extreme 200+ mph ball speeds was something TaylorMade was already working on, said Brian Bazzel, TaylorMade’s VP of product creation.

“Independent of the conversations we were having with Bryson, we were going down this path of prototyping drivers to, you know, as we always try to stay ahead of things for players of that immense speed that we’re seeing emerge in golf,” Bazzel told GOLF. “The stars aligned a bit as we were going down this path of exploration on sort of a concept car prototype, and then he started inquiring, getting a little bit more serious.”

DeChambeau’s first tee shot with the Qi4D Proto 200+ went a staggering 427 yards, but DeChambeau faded on Friday to miss his third straight major cut. The driver certainly wasn’t the issue as he led the field in SG: OTT the first two rounds.

Read more here

TaylorMade Qi4D Custom Driver

SHAPED FOR SPEED The re-engineered head profile increases ball speed thanks to improved aerodynamics developed through advanced simulations. FACE FOR DISTANCE 60x Carbon Twist Face™ is a technological cornerstone that provides weight savings, incredible ball speed and more consistency vs. a titanium face. ADJUSTABLE PERFORMANCE 4° loft sleeve can be used to adjust loft, lie and face angle for optimized flight. 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 of TaylorMade driver performance. Multi-Material Construction allows engineers to strategically place mass in areas of the head where it maximizes performance, speed, and stability.

Buy Now$649.99 from Fairway Jockey

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ALSO AVAILABLE AT: PGA TOUR Superstore, TaylorMade

Travelers Championship (June 25-29): Jordan Spieth’s putter change that never was

The practice green was littered with guys testing new putters at the Travelers Championship, and a good chunk of them belonged to Jordan Spieth.

Spieth set Twitter ablaze before the tournament by spending all day Tuesday testing a L.A.B. Golf VZN.1i and eventually several other center-shafted mallets. He even went as far as to game the L.A.B. during Wednesday’s pro-am, but by the end of the day Wednesday, he was back with his T.P. Mills Trad Forged II gamer.

This week at the John Deere, Spieth said any struggles he was having on the green were mental and he wasn’t planning on changing putters.

“I feel like I’ve been hitting my lines a lot, and especially the last month I just haven’t seen them go in,” Spieth said. “I’ve actually been hitting my lines well, and I was just, like, well, maybe if I just grab one off the shelf and it goes in on a practice green — you know, so much of putting is mental.

“My plan this week is just to stay with where I’m at. I made some putts on Sunday, and I plan on taking that momentum into this week.”

Read more here

Bonus: Wyndham Clark signs putter-only deal with Ping

While Clark switched to his current Ping Scottsdale TEC Ally Blue Onset CB gamer back in April, he and Ping executed one of the most well-timed sponsorship agreements ever, announcing the deal on the eve of his U.S. Open win.

“I credit the new putter for helping me get back in the winner’s circle,” Clark said in a release. “The white finish first got my attention, and when I started rolling putts with it, it set up easily and gave me immediate confidence. I’d never used a putter with onset before, so it was a new look for me that really matches my eye. The onset combined with the top-rail dot simplifies alignment and my consistency has improved. I’m sinking more long putts than ever.”

Clark ended up winning at Shinnecock, highlighting the dramatic turnaround in his play on the greens.

He finished 4th in the field at the U.S. Open in SG: Putting and has risen from 155th on the PGA Tour in the stat, where he was losing .725 strokes a round, to 43rd, gaining .239 strokes. He’s also 5th in putting average at 1.702.

“I played some ugly golf the last two days, but my putter and short game kind of kept me in it,” Clark told NBC’s Mike Tirico Sunday after hoisting the U.S. Open trophy.

Read more here

PING Scottsdale TEC Ally Blue Onset CB Custom Putter

Buy Now$399.00 from Fairway Jockey

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ALSO AVAILABLE AT: PGA TOUR Superstore

Specs
Ping Scottsdale TEC Ally Blue Onset CB
Loft: 3 degrees
Lie: 70 degrees
Length: 38″
Headweight: 400g (17g tip weight + 13g lead tape)
Insert: PEBAX
Grip: SuperStroke Tour 3.0 17″

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 Scotty Cameron Circle T prototype Phantom 5.5 putter with a Teryllium insert.

Odds and Ends

Some other gear changes and notes we’re tracking this week.

Rickie Fowler switched putters again, this time to a new Scotty Cameron Phantom 12 mallet … Daniel Berger switched from a TaylorMade Qi4D to a Titleist GTS4 … Berger (Tour X DB), Luke List (Tour V CS) and Travis Crowe (Tour X L-neck) all switched to Spiders this week.

3 things you should read/watch

A selection of GOLF content from the past week that may interest you.

Why Viktor Hovland finally retired his longtime driver for something new – Viktor Hovland got his first victory since switching away from the Ping G425 LST driver he used for almost six years.

I thought I knew what irons were for my game. I was wrong | Fully Fit 2026 – In the latest entry for GOLF’s Fully Fit, Fairway Jockey’s president explains his journey from playing cavity-back irons, to shifting to player’s distance clubs this season.

Is this the secret to Viktor Hovland’s driver switch? – Viktor Hovland’s new driver also featured a new shaft, the Fujikura Ventus TR Black with VeloCore+. Could this new option be a fit for you?

The author welcomes your comments at Jack.Hirsh@golf.com.

Want to overhaul your bag in 2026? Find a club-fitting location near you at True Spec Golf.

The post Looking back at busy month of June gear moves | Tour Report appeared first on Golf.

The post Matt Fitzpatrick reveals what it’s like searching for a new driver | Tour Report appeared first on Golf.

The post Matt Fitzpatrick reveals what it’s like searching for a new driver | Tour Report appeared first on Golf.

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.

CROMWELL, Conn. — Matt Fitzpatrick put on a driving clinic Thursday in Round 1 at the Travelers Championship.

The World No. 4 missed just one fairway and gained more than a shot off the tee around TPC River Highlands, using a new Ping G430 LST driver for the first time.

It’s just one round, but Fitzpatrick’s mid-season search for a new gamer might be finally be over, and after his round, he dove into what that process was like.

“It’s not as straightforward as everyone thinks,” he said Thursday.

Two months ago, Fitzpatrick was the hottest golfer on the PGA Tour, having won three tournaments in just over a month and helped his brother earn PGA Tour membership while doing it.

Then his driver, a Titleist GT3, cracked just before the start of his next event at the Truist Championship.

Entering that week, Fitzpatrick was 12th on the PGA Tour in SG: Off-the-Tee. He lost more than a stroke off-the-tee that week at Quail Hollow and lost strokes in the category in two of his next four events, falling to 46th. After winning three of four starts from March to the end of April, Fitzpatrick’s results since his driver broke were T52, T14, T36, 2nd and 22nd.

“If you look at my off the tee from then, it’s quite telling that obviously there was something in that driver that was helping me out and I struggled to find one since,” he said Thursday.

Fitzpatrick tried a new GT3 head and then later an updated Titleist GTS2 at the Memorial, but nothing seemed to replicate what he had with his gamer.

“Through unbelievable effort from the staff at Titleist,” Fitzpatrick, a gear-free agent aside from his putter deal with Bettinardi, added. “You know, it’s nothing against those guys, but just for whatever reason, there hasn’t been one that’s kind of managed to suit my eye, I guess, and kind of match my swing intentions.”

This week at Travelers, Fitzpatrick tried a number of new drivers from other manufacturers and didn’t seem to make a decision on the new 430 LST until late on Wednesday afternoon.

At TPC River Highlands, the 2022 U.S. Open winner tested both Ping’s G430 LST and the newer G440 LST drivers, Ping’s Kenton Oates told GOLF.

“Right away the 430 provided the launch and spin Matt was looking for,” Oates said. “We then focused on getting the right setting to maximize center contact. We found this in the neutral dot setting.”

Once contact was set, the next piece of the puzzle was the crucial one for Fitzpatrick.

“When you fit a golf club, everyone has tendencies, and not to bore everyone, but my tendency is like I like clubs or a driver with the CG closer to the heel,” he explained Thursday, certainly not boring any passionate gearheads. “That’s kind of where I’ve lived for basically my whole career. And certain golf clubs are, like, made without that. Just the box one, the one you buy off the rack might have it on the toe side, which if you gave that to me I would hit it 500 yards right or whatever it is.”

Fitzpatrick hits a pull-draw off the tee and hates to see the golf ball go right. To help that, almost all of his drivers throughout his career have been heel-weighted to allow the club face to close more easily.

PING G440 LST Custom Driver

The G440 driver family (MAX, LST, SFT) is optimized to deliver more ball speed through multiple advancements, including PING’s deepest CG in a driver to date and a shallower, thinner face, while continuing to ensure the game-changing forgiveness expected from a PING driver. The G440 LST (Low Spin) design appeals to players with faster swing speeds, providing lower spin and more control in 9° and 10.5° lofts with the three-position back weight. HIGHLY FORGIVING Lighter head weight allows for heavier back weight.  FASTER FACE  Shallow, thinner, face increases ball speed for more distance, higher launch.  SOUND DESIGN New shaping, carbon crown and internal ribs produce muted impact experience.  FREE-HOSEL DESIGN Saves weight to lower CG, increase forgiveness. Allows for more heel-side face flexing for consistent ball speed across face. 

Buy Now$619.00 from Fairway Jockey

View Product

ALSO AVAILABLE AT: PGA TOUR Superstore

Getting the weight just right and in the right spot is crucial. Too much weight or too close to the heel, and Fitzpatrick might hit it too far left or overcompensate. Not enough and he’ll start missing right.

“The detail is really important and it’s important to try and get that right as best as you can,” Fitzpatrick explained. “Everyone is different, their habits, how they move the club, how they react to different clubs. I tried one in Canada where it was literally exactly that, like neutral, neutral, neutral and I hit it 50 yards right, and that’s just the way I react. So I think people think that guys just get driver and it’s just going to go straight and away you go and there’s obviously a lot more to it than that.”

To dial it in just right, the 17g CG shifter on the 430 LST was moved to the heel position and then added another 3g of hot melt to the heel. He also tried a head with 6 g of hot melt, but that proved to be too much.

Every gram matters at that level.

Matt Fitzpatrick’s new driver specs
Ping G430 LST 9.0
Actual Loft: 8.2
Trajectory 2.0 hosel: DOT (Std)
CG Shifter: Heel (17g)
Hot melt: 3g heel
Shaft: Mitsubishi Tensei CK Orange 65TX
Length 45.75″
Tipping: 1″
Swingweight: D7+

Rickie, Rose, Spaun and Spieth all make (or almost make) major putter moves

The practice green at TPC River Highlands was busy early in the week as several big-name pros considered flatstick changes.

Perhaps the most notable was the one that never happened: Jordan Spieth spent all of Tuesday and most of Wednesday working with a L.A.B. Golf VZN.1i mallet and a Scotty Cameron Phantom 5 OC prototype, but ended up sticking with his T.P. Mills Trad Forged II blade.

Spieth spent lots of hours working with the L.A.B. Golf mallet on Tuesday under the watchful eye of Cameron McCormick, with the Mills blade nowhere in sight. Spieth revealed earlier this month to Golf on CBS’s Patrick McDonald that he had been fit for L.A.B. putters over the offseason, but said that the MOI benefit of a mallet wasn’t worth it in putting.

“The mallet, the increased MOI is just so minimal on putting,” Spieth said. “It’s making almost no difference unless you really hit it off-center with putts. Which for pros, they don’t. I mean, you’re talking about a difference of 5 mm toe or heel for the most part and it’s not going to make that much of a difference.”

He specifically left the door open to trying something else down the road, which he did this week. He ended up using the L.A.B. during Wednesday’s Pro-Am, but walked off the course with at least three L.A.B. headcovers in his bag. By the end of Wednesday, the Mills had reappeared and he played it in Thursday’s round of 71.

Meanwhile, Justin Rose, Rickie Fowler and J.J. Spaun all went through with putter changes.

For Rose, he spent lots of time on Wednesday testing different putters on a Grasp Technology putting gate, before narrowing it down to his gamer Scotty Cameron Phantom 5, an updated version with a softer Studio Carbon Steel insert and standard top rail alignment aid, a Spider Tour F single-bend and an Axis1 SP Series-Axiom.

After some more work on the green, the Axis1 got the nod. Rose consulted on the design of the “zero-torque” putter, which has no shaft lean, minimal onset and adjustability weighting to help fit a player’s stroke profile.

Rose gained more than 2.3 strokes putting in an opening-round 65.

Fowler’s move was perhaps the most surprising of the bunch, setting aside his Scotty Cameron GoLo 7 S1 prototype for a new Xperimental tour prototype Phantom mallet. The shape resembles an oversized Phantom 11 and Fowler told GOLF the putter is an entirely aluminum construction.

While aluminum typically makes the sound a little brighter and feel firmer, Fowler said this one actually feels soft to him, possibly owing to the extreme MOI created by the entirely aluminum construction.

Notably, it’s the same traditional center-shaft design from his GoLo that he said he’s really become fond of over the offseason. After Fowler started using it, the center-shafted GoLo had a bit of a resurgence this season, with both Gary Woodland and Bud Cauley earning victories after switching to the model. Fowler was 34th in SG: Putting entering the week, his best standing since 2019, using the GoLo.

And lastly, Spaun tested numerous putters this week before leaving the L.A.B. Golf catalog entirely for a highly custom bronze-finished Phantom 9.5R with a flow neck. It also has an aluminium face, which is something Cameron has been doing more and more of recently.

Spaun made a mid-tournament switch at the U.S. Open to a VZN.1i after starting his title defense with an OZ.1i HS. He’s been testing putters each week since benching his U.S. Open-winning DF3, which he won again with earlier this year in San Antonio.

Srixon ZXi RKT drivers go for launch

Srixon’s successor to the ZXi drivers surfaced at the Travelers Championship and three staffers put new ZXi RKT (pronounced “Rocket”) drivers in play immediately.

In total, there were seven new heads posted to the USGA conforming list on Monday with five of them showing up in Cromwell.

Hideki Matsuayama immediately put into play the new ZXi RKT LS T262, which carries over the same prototype silver face he played on his current ZXi LS T252 gamer.

Ryan Fox added the ZXi RKT LS+ after some thorough testing on the range and Lucas Glover added the standard LS model late on Wednesday.

At Hazeltine for the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, Jenny Shin and Nasa Hataoka also gamed the new Srixon drivers.

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 U.S. Open champion Wyndham Clark’s driver setup. Before winning at Shinnecock, Clark dropped from a 10.5˚ to a 9˚ head.

Odds and Ends

Some other gear changes and notes we’re tracking this week.

Odyssey officially launched its TRTL Prototype putter on the PGA Tour this week. Nicolai Hojgaard put one in play and Min Woo Lee switched from a short slant to a double bend … Daniel Berger added the Titleist GTS Prototype 15.0 3-wood … Denny McCarthy added Titleist GTS2 driver … Jacob Bridgeman added a 9-wood to the bag in place of his 4-iron … Brandt Snedeker added a Spider Tour V Double Bend after winning with a Spider Tour X Double Bend earlier this year … Shane Lowry was spotted with two prototype Srixon 3-irons … Corey Conners went back to a Ping PLD Milled Ally Blue Onset after using the Ally Blue H recently … Fowler tested new prototype UST Recoil Dart XDC 120x iron shafts in his Cobra 3DP RF irons, but didn’t put them in play … Si Woo Kim added a 11.5˚ Callaway Quantum Mini Driver

3 things you should read/watch

A selection of GOLF content from the past week that may interest you.

What Scottie Scheffler’s under-the-radar wedge change says about him – Scottie Scheffler has changed lob wedges three times over the past four years, but not because of the course or conditions. He explained why this week.

The best Titleist ball for you may not be the Pro V1 – Johnny Wunder puts Titleist’s Tour Soft golf ball through its paces and explains why it could fit you better than the Pro V1.

Wyndham Clark’s Ping putter deal couldn’t have been timed any better – Wyndham Clark signed a putter-only endorsement contract with Ping on the eve of the U.S. Open. Safe to say it paid off.

The author welcomes your comments at Jack.Hirsh@golf.com.

Want to overhaul your bag in 2026? Find a club-fitting location near you at True Spec Golf.

The post Matt Fitzpatrick reveals what it’s like searching for a new driver | Tour Report appeared first on Golf.

The post Inside Bryson DeChambeau’s prototype TaylorMade Qi4D driver at the U.S. Open | Tour Report appeared first on Golf.

The post Inside Bryson DeChambeau’s prototype TaylorMade Qi4D driver at the U.S. Open | Tour Report appeared first on Golf.

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. This week, he’s joined by Director of Equipment Johnny Wunder.

Bryson DeChambeau arrived at the U.S. Open with a prototype TaylorMade driver that was a long time coming.

The company and the two-time U.S. Open winner stole the gear story of the week at Shinnecock early Monday morning when two new Qi4D Prototype 200+ drivers showed up on the USGA conforming list.

Those prototypes turned out to be for none other than DeChambeau himself, who had been working with TaylorMade’s team for six months on the design. It’s the next chapter in DeChambeau’s long quest to create the perfect equipment to optimize for his extremely high ball speeds.

But this wasn’t something that TaylorMade started working on just because DeChambeau approached them earlier this year. Developing a product for extreme 200+ mph ball speeds was something TaylorMade was already working on, said Brian Bazzel, TaylorMade’s VP of product creation.

“Independent of the conversations we were having with Bryson, we were going down this path of prototyping drivers to, you know, as we always try to stay ahead of things for players of that immense speed that we’re seeing emerge in golf,” Bazzel told GOLF. “The stars aligned a bit as we were going down this path of exploration on sort of a concept car prototype, and then he started inquiring, getting a little bit more serious.”

As more and more golfers hit the professional game with extreme speeds like DeChambeau, TaylorMade jumped at the opportunity to work with the two-time major winner on a solution.

“How often would somebody have the opportunity to test such an asset of one of the best players in the world, major winner, who is very, very detailed in terms of what he thinks he needs?” said TaylorMade Tour Rep Adrian Rietveld, who worked with DeChambeau to fit him into the prototype. “As an equipment company, we’ve been speaking to Bryson for years about stuff, ideas. We’d be in conversations or we’d meet with him. He’s been talking about a product that he feels would work for high-speed players as there is a wave of this coming.”

DeChambeau’s prototype uses the same core construction as the standard Qi4D models, including a carbon face, carbon sole plate, the titanium front piece and collar.

But where things start to differ is in the nearly completely smooth sole plate, which makes the driver more aerodynamic. The driver also has a more “toe-shaped” profile, Bazzel said, which again improves the driver’s aerodynamic performance. And the CG is extremely forward to help mitigate spin at extreme speeds. Unlike the standard Qi4D, which has four adjustable weights, the two prototype versions have only three or two. DeChambeau is using “Version 2” without a rear weight port.

TaylorMade Qi4D Custom Driver

SHAPED FOR SPEED The re-engineered head profile increases ball speed thanks to improved aerodynamics developed through advanced simulations. FACE FOR DISTANCE 60x Carbon Twist Face™ is a technological cornerstone that provides weight savings, incredible ball speed and more consistency vs. a titanium face. ADJUSTABLE PERFORMANCE 4° loft sleeve can be used to adjust loft, lie and face angle for optimized flight. 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 of TaylorMade driver performance. Multi-Material Construction allows engineers to strategically place mass in areas of the head where it maximizes performance, speed, and stability.

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ALSO AVAILABLE AT: PGA TOUR Superstore, TaylorMade

The biggest adjustment was to TaylorMade’s Twist Face bulge-and-roll profile, which has exaggerated characteristics to help players with 130+ mph swing speeds, like DeChambeau, keep the ball in play. Extreme bulge-and-roll profiles are nothing new for DeChambeau. That was core to the design of his previous gamer, the Krank Formula Fire Pro, and the driver he designed with LA Golf. Since the 2024 Masters, he’s also played irons with curved faces to mitigate misses.

“When a shot is hit off-center, especially at the force and speed that he’s hitting it at — this happens for every golfer, but obviously it’s amplified in his case,” Bazzel said.

The forward CG DeChambeau requires to keep his spin down also makes the driver more susceptible to opening and closing on a miss, which is why the face curvature becomes so important.

TaylorMade is uniquely positioned to create faces with those profiles thanks to their carbonwood technology. Not only is the material lighter than titanium faces, but it can be created with tighter tolerances and with more accurate shaping.

“You’re designing to zero tolerance, and then you also have the benefit of the consistency of the face,” Rietveld said. “Bryson hits a lot of drivers. Bryson hits a lot of balls at high speed. That driver will hold its shape and hold everything for thousands of shots.”

Carbon faces also allow TaylorMade to create new iterations faster than they could with titanium.

The shape is very particular to help it move through the air, and it’s a shape Bazzel said the average consumer wouldn’t go for.

“When you look at the shape of the product, you’ll notice it’s a little bit more toe-shaped, which a lot of average golfers probably would not want that,” he said. “But from an aerodynamic standpoint, it’s advantageous.”

It’s truly a driver optimized for the extreme end of the bell curve. But DeChambeau, along with TaylorMade, thinks more extreme swing speed players are coming.

The two drivers that landed on the conforming list this week are actually the second iteration of prototype heads developed with DeChambeau, Rietveld said. The first testing was done with DeChambeau using the standard Qi4D heads just to see how the platform would hold up with his speeds.

A significant round of testing took place around Masters week in Dallas, where Rietveld gathered data and feedback from DeChambeau before TaylorMade created the current prototypes for this week.

So far, DeChambeau seems to like what he sees. On the range this week at Shinnecock, he was intentionally hitting balls off the heel and toe that were still flying on target.

The driver has a stated loft of 7 degrees, again to help manage DeChambeau’s spin, and is actually set one click lower from the upright setting to help him produce his desired draw ball flight. That’s key because, as Rietveld points out, they could take a 9-degree head and make it 7 degrees using a loft sleeve, but starting at 7 degrees lets them get the face and lie angles exactly where DeChambeau wants them.

He’s also playing the new Project X Titan Black 70TX shaft after playing a Project X prototype for much of the year. The build he’s using at Shinnecock puts his launch around 13 degrees with 2100 rpm spin.

Johnny Wunder contributed to this report.

Golf Pride continues to be the best in class

After the first round at Shinnecock, eight of the nine players to shoot 68 or better played Golf Pride grips.

In total, 142 of the 156-player field played a Golf Pride Grip.

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 the custom oil can finished X Forged and Apex MB prototype irons built for Min Woo Lee to test.

Odds and Ends

Some other gear changes and notes we’re tracking this week.

Adam Scott was one of more than 70 pros — including Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Wyndham Clark, Min Woo Lee, Justin Rose, Viktor Hovland, Chris Gotterup— opting for a 2- or 3-utility-iron this week in place of a high-lofted fairway wood because of the high winds. This is after just a few pros used utility irons last year at Oakmont… Patrick Cantlay switched to a Spider Tour X DBL Bend … Sahith Theegala added a new Ping G440 2-hybrid, replacing his 4-wood and retiring his older G425 “Frankenhybrid” … TaylorMade blew away the fairway wood count with 102, 47 percent of all in play, 40 being Qi4D models … Fujikura swept the driver (45.9%), overall wood (44.1%) and hybrid shafts (37.9%).

3 things you should read/watch

A selection of GOLF content from the past week that may interest you.

Min Woo Lee isn’t afraid to use prototype clubs on the big stage | Bag Spy – Take a deep dive into Min Woo Lee’s gear setup and see how its evolved with his recent swing changes.

How Titleist is fitting GTS drivers for the U.S. Open – Johnny Wunder chats with Titleist’s Nick Geyer on the rollout of Titleist’s new GTS drivers at the U.S. Open.

Wyndham Clark signs Ping’s first putter-only endorsement contract – On the eve of the U.S. Open, Wyndham Clark and Ping announced a first-of-its-kind endorsement contract for the brand.

The author welcomes your comments at Jack.Hirsh@golf.com.

Want to overhaul your bag in 2026? Find a club-fitting location near you at True Spec Golf.

The post Inside Bryson DeChambeau’s prototype TaylorMade Qi4D driver at the U.S. Open | Tour Report appeared first on Golf.

The post Viktor Hovland brought 1 driver to Canada. It wasn’t his gamer | Tour Report appeared first on Golf.

The post Viktor Hovland brought 1 driver to Canada. It wasn’t his gamer | Tour Report appeared first on Golf.

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.

Viktor Hovland showed up to this week’s RBC Canadian Open with one driver. Normally, that wouldn’t be much of a story, but the driver Hovland brought wasn’t the same one he used in his last start at the PGA Championship or for the last six years.

“That’s one way to switch,” Ping Tour Rep Kenton Oates told GOLF. “Leave your security blanket in Oklahoma and call it a day.”

Oates was not on site at TPC Toronto this week. The Canadian Open is typically a quiet week in gear on the PGA Tour, as the Tour trucks that typically service players don’t make the trip north of the border for logistical reasons. That also means companies send a much more limited Tour staff.

This week, Ping sent Spencer Rothluebber, who texted Oates earlier this week to tell him that Hovland did not even bring his longtime Ping G425 LST gamer to Canada.

The only driver he had was a Ping G440 LST, a driver Hovland has been working toward getting in the bag for much of the past two seasons.

Hovland has worked with Ping’s team every few months recently in testing the G440 LST and newer G440 K drivers. He even has gamed both the new models at different points, with the LST seeing the bag at last year’s Masters and the K going in play at this year’s WM Phoenix Open. But he keeps reverting back to his safety net of the G425 that he’s captured all but one of his seven PGA Tour victories with.

PING G440 LST Custom Driver

The G440 driver family (MAX, LST, SFT) is optimized to deliver more ball speed through multiple advancements, including PING’s deepest CG in a driver to date and a shallower, thinner face, while continuing to ensure the game-changing forgiveness expected from a PING driver. The G440 LST (Low Spin) design appeals to players with faster swing speeds, providing lower spin and more control in 9° and 10.5° lofts with the three-position back weight. HIGHLY FORGIVING Lighter head weight allows for heavier back weight.  FASTER FACE  Shallow, thinner, face increases ball speed for more distance, higher launch.  SOUND DESIGN New shaping, carbon crown and internal ribs produce muted impact experience.  FREE-HOSEL DESIGN Saves weight to lower CG, increase forgiveness. Allows for more heel-side face flexing for consistent ball speed across face. 

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ALSO AVAILABLE AT: PGA TOUR Superstore

Oates said the 440s outperform the 425 in every category in testing. The hold-up was peak height.

“I tried out the new 440 last year because it is faster,” Hovland said earlier this year in Phoenix. “The spin consistency off the face is a joke. If I hit it off the heel or the toe with a 425, the spin discrepancy is very large. Like if I hit it off the toe, I can spin it under 2000. If I hit it off the heel, I can maybe get up to 3000. Versus the 440, it’s very tight. It goes from maybe 2000 to 2600, so a huge gap.

“However, the problem is it launches a little bit higher for me. And for some reason, just with the setup that I’ve tested with, it tends to go a bit more to the right. Right now with my golf swing, when I get stuck, my miss is already a high right miss. If I hit this driver, it’s just getting exenuated.”

When Hovland last tested at the Truist Championship and PGA Championship, Oates initially thought the 440 K would have the edge, but as they went on, the LST had a clear advantage in start line, just a touch more right than the K.

Hovland finally became comfortable at home in his three weeks off between the PGA and this week. A big factor was a shift to the Fujikura Ventus TR Black+ 6-X shaft, which has a stiffer mid-section, more like the Speeder 757 shaft he plays in his 425.

“As he tightened his swing up a little bit, to me it felt like it was just coming out of the proper start line every time,” Oates said. “TR Black Plus was a home run on paper right away because it should have dropped his spin, and it should give him a better feel.”

With the new build, Oates said Hovland could finally take advantage of the 3-4 mph of extra ball speed he got from the 440 head.

Specs
Ping G440 LST 9.0
Actual loft: 7.4
Ping Trajectory 2.0 setting: Flat Dot
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus TR Black w/ Velocore+ 6-X
Tipping: 1″
Length: 45.75″ EOG
Swingweight: D5+
Grip: Golf Pride MCC Black/Blue 60R (+1 wrap)

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 2024 Canadian Open winner Robert MacIntyre’s highly customized Scotty Cameron Phantom 9.5R putter.

Odds and Ends

Some other gear changes and notes we’re tracking this week.

Alex Noren returned to the Quantum Max D after a brief stint back in the Paradym Ai-Smoke Max D … Nick Taylor and Taylor Moore joined Hovland in moving to the 440 LST … Wyndham Clark went back to his Ping G440 Max 3-wood and went from 10.5˚ to 9.0˚ loft on his Qi4D driver … Hovland also added a new TaylorMade Qi4D 3-wood … Harry Hall, after using Callaway Rouge ST for his past two starts, is back in a GTS3 driver … Tom Kim re-added his Titleist 20˚ GT1 hybrid alongside his GTS3 5-wood, opting for a three-wedge setup … Kensei Hirata added the new TaylorMade Spider Tour V Torched … Michael Thorbjornsen added a TaylorMade Qi4D 5-wood.

3 things you should read/watch

A selection of GOLF content from the past week that may interest you.

I tried ‘zero-torque’ putters for 6 months. Here’s why I’m not using one now | Fully Fit 2026 — In the latest entry to Fully Fit, I go over my short-lived experiment with low-torque putters and how it did indeed help my putting.

Ping’s PLD Putting Lab showed me something I hadn’t seen before — Jake Morrow visited Ping’s PLD Putting Lab to check out the technology behind Wyndham Clark and Tony Finau’s Scottsdale TEC putters.

J.T. Poston’s uber-popular driver model notches its first PGA Tour win — J.T. Poston’s win at Memorial was the first victory for the hottest new driver on the PGA Tour.

The author welcomes your comments at Jack.Hirsh@golf.com.

Want to overhaul your bag in 2026? Find a club-fitting location near you at True Spec Golf.

The post Viktor Hovland brought 1 driver to Canada. It wasn’t his gamer | Tour Report appeared first on Golf.

The post Titleist’s GTS driver just earned its hottest convert yet | Tour Report appeared first on Golf.

The post Titleist’s GTS driver just earned its hottest convert yet | Tour Report appeared first on Golf.

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.

DUBLIN, Ohio — Cameron Young has made his move to golf’s hottest new driver.

Young became the latest player to switch to one of Titleist’s new GTS drivers, opting for a 10-degree GTS3, moving from the 11-degree GT3 he switched to earlier this year before winning the Players and Cadillac Championships.

Young is the first player ranked inside the top 10 of the Official World Golf Ranking to add the new driver. Previously, the highest-ranked player was No. 16 Justin Thomas. The add makes Young the 65th player currently gaming a GTS driver, while over 70 players have played one.

Young has had a unique driver build since his switch at Bay Hill, where he went back to his Mitsubishi Diamana PD 60TX shaft and changed to the 11-degree GT3, lofted down in the D1 setting, to help get more launch to match his prototype Pro V1x Double Dot golf ball.

While that switch put his spin in a great window, around 2,500 with an extra two degrees of launch at 11 degrees, his spin started creeping up as the season went on. Titleist rep J.J. Van Wezenbeeck told GOLF he was climbing into the upper 2,000s.

“His spins have been kind of creeping up a little bit. So the spins have been getting a little bit closer to 28, 29,” he said. “At times when he’s swinging really fast, the 11-degree head is bordering on a little too high, and a 10 is bordering a little bit on the too low.”

This is where the GTS’s dual weighting system really came in handy.

“Being able to utilize the dual weighting just lets us kind of get into a really nice in-between spot in terms of launch and spin for him,” Van Wezenbeeck said.

Because the GTS has both an adjustable front track weight and an adjustable rear flat weight, Titleist was able to put an extra two grams in the rear of Young’s new GTS3, which was just enough to give him the extra launch he needed, while staying at the 10-degree loft.

Young has been testing GTS3 since the prototype stage back in December, so he already knew the GTS3 was potentially going to be the right fit for him. Once he finally had some time off between this week’s Memorial and last month’s PGA Championship, he made the switch at home.

The new driver brings Young’s spin window into the 2,600 to 2,700 range and keeps it there thanks to the GTS platform’s improved spin consistency. While that’s a bit higher than it was at the beginning of the year, that extra spin helps Young manage his mishits and keeps them from falling out of the sky.

“He kind of knew the spin stability that he gets with this driver,” Van Wezenbeeck said. “So that was kind of a big one, it’s really how well it manages his mishits. And so that was kind of a big one to have in play for him.”

Titleist GTS3 Custom Driver

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ALSO AVAILABLE AT: PGA TOUR Superstore, Titleist

Cameron Young’s GTS3 specs
Titleist GTS3 10.0
SureFit Hosel Setting: A1
SureFit CG Setting: 10g N track, 7g rear
Shaft: Mitsubishi Diamana PD 60 TX

Young also made a tweak to his iron set, soft-stepping his Dynamic Gold X7 shafts to give him back the ability to hit off-speed shots more effectively.

Similar to his driver setup, soft-stepping the X7 as opposed to going back to the X100s gave him a nice middle ground of control and feel, Van Wezenbeeck said.

Rose goes raw

Justin Rose has been making little tweaks here and there to his McLaren Golf Series 1 irons as he works to fully dial them in after making the switch to the supercar maker’s first venture into golf equipment.

This week, Rose made the most notable move yet, switching to a completely raw set of Series 1s.

But don’t get too excited. McLaren doesn’t have any immediate plans to offer their new irons unfinished. Instead, the absence of the plating and polishing serves a functional purpose, McLaren Golf Senior Design Manager for Irons and Wedges JP Herrington told GOLF, as Rose works to tweak his new clubs.

“Right now we want to be able to move fast and get everything dialed in,” Herrington said. “It allows that flexibility to make some of those adjustments versus having to send them out and get them plated and then get them back.”

The change Rose and Herrington made at the Memorial this week? Moving toward less offset in the mid-irons.

At Rose’s request, the initial Series 1s had a unique progressive offset package with jumps between the short and mid-irons and the mid- to the long irons. With this new raw set Rose saw for the first time at Muirfield Village, the offset on the mid-irons was reduced by half a millimeter. That’s enough to make a difference to someone like Rose, who Herrington said has one of the most discerning eyes on Tour.

McLaren Golf Series 1 Custom Irons

A Tour blade with the feel you expect and the forgiveness you don’t. Series1 is a modern Tour blade, engineered through Metal Injection Molding. It delivers a level of forgiveness traditional forging can’t achieve, while maintaining the feel and workability often lost in cast designs. The result is performance without compromise – a blade for elite players who demand more from their irons.

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“Having something that really feels comfortable looking down at it — and we’re talking those little minute changes, whether it’s a half or a quarter of a millimeter — make a difference, especially to someone like Justin,” Herrington said. “A lot of it, he talks about just that visual at address, how it meets his eye, and then that translates to confidence into the golf swing.”

Herrington wasn’t sure Rose would end up gaming the raw set this week, but it looked like from watching Rose’s first testing session on Tuesday that a lightbulb went off on the first swing. He immediately noted that he was reaching apex heights of more than 130 feet with the raw irons, something he said he hadn’t seen in a long time.

The ball also seemed to be holding his line better, Herrington said.

That probably had more to do with visual comfort than any performance difference with the clubs.

The raw finished irons could remain in the bag, but Herrington said it’s unlikely. Rose even asked if the specific set he had could eventually be polished and plated.

After a rough start with the new irons at the Cadillac Championship, Rose seemed to find a groove at the PGA Championship with a T10 finish. This week, he opened with a 69 on Thursday and led the field with 15 greens in regulation.

Maybe he continues with the raw irons if he keeps hitting the ball like that.

Fleetwood sees ‘shadows’

Tommy Fleetwood is looking for a “shadow” on the greens this week and it might have finally jump-started his putting slump to begin the season.

The reigning FedEx Cup champion made his fourth putter switch this season and perhaps the most significant one yet. After playing with TaylorMade’s larger Spider Tour since moving to the mallet platform at the RBC Heritage last year, Fleetwood is gaming a new, smaller Spider Tour X this week at the Memorial.

Despite earning five top-10s already this season, Fleetwood has struggled on the greens, losing .064 strokes a round and ranking 93rd on the PGA Tour. Last season he gained more than four-tenths of a stroke and ranked 20th.

At the Valero Texas Open, Fleetwood changed his alignment aid on the Spider Tour Black from the custom Sharpie lines hand-drawn on the top by TaylorMade putter rep James Holley to a “pilot’s eye” aid. He then used a similar model in the new 2026 Torched finish at the RBC Heritage before returning to the black finish for his next start at the Cadillac Championship.

But this week, he’s gone to a different head entirely with the Spider Tour Black X with the same “pilot’s eye” alignment aid and short slant hosel.

TaylorMade 2025 Spider Tour X Black Custom Putter

BLACK PVD FINISH The durable PVD coating creates a beautiful high-quality finish with sole plate, back badge and copper accents. TRUE PATH™ ALIGNMENT The patented alignment system provides visual clarity and helps golfers better envision the line to the hole. WHITE TPU PURE ROLL™ INSERTMade from a combination of Surlyn and aluminum, the white TPU Pure Roll™ insert creates a softer feel. Grooves are angled at 45° to encourage optimal forward roll as well as better sound, feel and overall roll characteristics. The white insert also creates better symmetry with the white True Path alignment. THIN WALL UNDERCUT CONSTRUCTION We’ve engineered a super stable structure by removing excess weight to create high MOI and legendary Spider performance. HYBRAR ECHO®DAMPENER HYBRAR is behind the face to dampen unwanted vibrations, delivering premium sound and feel on every putt with the best possible sensation. TSS WEIGHTING TSS weights provide balanced weighting and help optimize performance for all various putter lengths. STEEL WIREFRAME Allows engineers to better control weight distribution and CG location.

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ALSO AVAILABLE AT: PGA TOUR Superstore, TaylorMade

“The main reason Tommy switched to the X was the slightly more forward CG and the alignment benefits of the true path,” Holley told GOLF. “He started lining up the Clear Path on his TP5 pix more often and although the TruePath is blacked out, the ‘shadow’ of the true path matched up nicely to that.”

While Fleetwood’s new Spider Tour X is still all black with no TruePath aid like his previous putters, the Spider Tour X has the outline of the True Path built into the top, while a Spider Tour without TruePath is smooth.

That outline of the TruePath turned out to really help Fleetwood with his alignment on the greens. Fleetwood has actually had the putter for a few months leading up to the change.

In Round 1 at Jack’s place, that paid off as Fleetwood was third in the field in SG: Putting, picking up nearly two and a half shots as he fired a 67 to co-lead going into Friday.

Fleetwood also got two new replica putters this week to celebrate his FedEx Cup victory last year. Holley had the original Sharpie lines scanned and then laser-etched them into the toplines of the putter. The replicas also came with custom Winston Collection headcovers with the same design embroidered on top.

Rory makes a change to the big stick

Rory McIlroy leads the PGA Tour in SG: Off-the-Tee this season, but he’s still finding the fairway just 55 percent of the time.

McIlroy is switching this week to the Fujikura Ventus Black 7-X shaft, up in weight from the 6-X he has played for the past several years. McIlroy also added weight to the head of his TaylorMade Qi4D driver, going up to two 13g weights in the rear instead of the 11s he had to begin the year.

The 7-X is nothing new to McIlroy, as he played the heavier version of Ventus Black at times in his career.

Caddie Harry Diamond told GOLF that McIlroy saw more stability with the heavier build in testing, leading to the switch.

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 Hideki Matusyama’s prototype Srixon 5-wood he added to the bag last week in Fort Worth to replace his longtime Cobra RadSpeed Tour 5-wood.

Odds and Ends

Some other gear changes and notes we’re tracking this week.

Lucas Glover (Spider Tour Torched Long) and Jhonny Vegas (Spider Tour X Torched) switched into TaylorMade putters this week, giving the brand the win in the putter count with 20 in play, 19 being Spider models. … Sepp Straka gamed the Qi4D LS driver and Qi4D fairway woods he first added in Austria last month. … Corey Conners was the first player to test Mitsubishi’s new Tensei 1K Pro Orange wood shaft with Rip+ technology in his Ping G440 LST, although it didn’t quite crack the bag, yet. … Justin Thomas was testing Titleist’s unreleased GTS 3-wood prototype, although he stuck with his GTS300 Mini Driver. … Keegan Bradley and Sepp Straka added TaylorMade’s Qi4D LS driver while Brandt Snedeker and Daniel Berger added the core model Qi4D. … Berger (4-wood), Brian Harman (3-wood) and J.T. Poston (7-wood) all added Qi4D woods.

3 things you should read/watch

A selection of GOLF content from the past week that may interest you.

Wyndham Clark was ‘dating’ putters. Now he’s finally found the one – Wyndham Clark has seen a dramatic improvement in his putting since switching to a Ping Scottsdale TEC Ally Blue Onset.

Explaining Project X’s Titan Yellow wood shaft – Clark earned his win the week he switched to Project X’s new counterbalanced Titan yellow wood shaft. Jake Morrow explains how the new shaft works.

Russell Henley took advantage of Titleist GTS’ newest club option – Russell Henley won last week in Fort Worth using a Titleist GTS3 7-wood, the first 7-wood option the company has ever offered in the “3” head.

The author welcomes your comments at Jack.Hirsh@golf.com.

Want to overhaul your bag in 2026? Find a club-fitting location near you at True Spec Golf.

The post Titleist’s GTS driver just earned its hottest convert yet | Tour Report appeared first on Golf.

The post J.J. Spaun benched his U.S. Open-winning putter. Here’s why | Tour Report appeared first on Golf.

The post J.J. Spaun benched his U.S. Open-winning putter. Here’s why | Tour Report appeared first on Golf.

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.

Spaun, who became the first player to win a major with a “zero-torque”-style putter at the U.S. Open last year, is switching from his L.A.B. Golf DF3 to a completely different look in an OZ.1i HS this week at the Charles Schwab Challenge.

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.

L.A.B. Golf OZ.1i HS Putter (Stock)

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.

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ALSO AVAILABLE AT: PGA TOUR Superstore, L.A.B. Golf

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.

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.

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.

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.

TaylorMade Qi4D Custom Fairway Wood

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.

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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.

Odds and Ends

Some other gear changes and notes we’re tracking this week.

TaylorMade launched its new Spider ZT Max putter on Tour this week … Robert MacIntyre switched to a heavily customized Scotty Cameron Phantom 9.5R with a custom milled insert with grooves, short plumber’s neck and extended rear wings … Justin Thomas added the Titleist GTS300 Mini Driver … J.T. Poston switched to the Titleist Pro V1x Left Dash golf ball … Nico Echavarria is on his third driver of the year, this time adding a Titleist GTS2 9.0 … He also added TaylorMade Qi4D Tour 3- and 5-woods … Akshay Bhatia added the Mitsubishi Tensei 1k Pro White 70TX to both his driver and 2-wood this week … Hideki Matsuyama switched back to the Graphite Design Tour AD Fi in his driver … Michael Thorbjornsen switched to a Spider Tour X Black with a Double Bend shaft … Haotong Li added a TaylorMade R7 Quad 13.5 Mini Driver

3 things you should read/watch

A selection of GOLF content from the past week that may interest you.

Tour Validated: Why Jake Knapp’s fairway strategy is a wake-up call for your top-of-bag gapping – We had Jake Knapp walk us through how he builds the top of his golf bag to show how it can help your game.

The game-improvement hybrid Cam Young played? It’s a versatile weapon for me – I tried the Titleist GT1 hybrid Cam Young had in the bag earlier this year and it’s potentially the most surprising club I’ve played this year.

Elevate your on-course look with Wyndham Clark’s sophisticated golf shoes – Wyndham Clark picked up his fourth career victory at the 2026 CJ Cup Byron Nelson wearing a pair of stylish FootJoy Premiere Series shoes.

The author welcomes your comments at Jack.Hirsh@golf.com.

Want to overhaul your bag in 2026? Find a club-fitting location near you at True Spec Golf.

The post J.J. Spaun benched his U.S. Open-winning putter. Here’s why | Tour Report appeared first on Golf.

The post What Brooks Koepka said about new putter before season-best round | Tour Report appeared first on Golf.

The post What Brooks Koepka said about new putter before season-best round | Tour Report appeared first on Golf.

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.

At least for one round, Brooks Koepka finally took advantage of his PGA Tour-leading ball striking, firing an opening 63 at the CJ Cup Byron Nelson.

Koepka was once again dialed in on approach, where he leads the Tour in Strokes Gained for the season, but he seems to have found something with a new flatstick, too. Koepka’s +2.56 Strokes Gained: Putting in Round 1 was not only 10th in the field, but also the five-time major champion’s second-best day on the greens this season.

The new putter in question — a Scotty Cameron Fastback 1.5 mid-mallet — is Koepka’s fourth different putter this season after spending most of his career using Scotty Cameron Newport 2 Teryllium blade models. Koepka used the Fastback 1.5 model at last year’s Irish Open when his putting started to slip.

Koepka started the year with his Newport 2 before making a change at the WM Phoenix Open, his second event after rejoining the PGA Tour from LIV Golf. He used a TaylorMade Spider Tour X L-neck putter until last week’s PGA Championship, when he tried a prototype Spider Tour V.

That lasted just one week, as Koepka was 63rd in putting at Aronimink. He showed up in Texas this week saying he wanted a putter with a bit more natural release.

“It’s something that just feels good in my hands,” Koepka said of the Fastback on Wednesday, before the tournament. “I feel like I’ve struggled with the toe release a little bit, kind of fighting that, kind of holding it off, and this putter seems to have a little bit more toe hang, to get kind of scientific with it or more in depth on it.

“It’s got a bit more toe hang than what I have been using all year, kind of similar to the blade. I know the CG’s up closer to the front of the face, which is kind of what I’m looking for.”

A more forward CG makes a mallet putter feel more like a blade through the stroke. That presumably was the same concept behind Koepka’s Spider Tour V he used last week. While we don’t know the technical details for certain, the previous generation Spider Tour V had the most forward CG in the TaylorMade lineup.

Scotty Cameron Studio Style Fastback 1.5 Custom Putter

STUDIO CARBON STEEL (SCS) FACE INSERT Designed to deliver the unmistakably soft sound and feel of carbon, the new precision milled Studio Carbon Steel (SCS) insert is treated with an electroless nickel plating for enhanced durability in a re-engineered concept that includes the line’s new chain-link face milling technology and aerospace-inspired vibration damping for tuned sound, feel and performance. CHAIN-LINK FACE MILLING TECHNOLOGY New chain-link face milling technology reduces the putter face insert’s touch points at impact with the ball using a texture that softens the sound and provides improved roll characteristics while preserving feel and feedback off the putter face. FULL CONTACT SLIM GRIP With a comfortable chain-link texture to match the new putter face milling pattern, the custom crafted Full Contact Slim paddle-style grip was designed to complement the stroke and performance of blade and mid-mallet putters. Its uniquely contoured profile and flat top provide superior comfort and contact between the hands and the putter, and enhanced body alignment. MULTI-MATERIAL CONSTRUCTION The Studio Style Fastback 1.5 extends Scotty Cameron’s proven design methodology of incorporating complementary materials to achieve desired performance characteristics. The Fastback 1.5 has a precision milled 6061 aircraft grade aluminum sole plate expertly designed into the 303 stainless steel putter head, as well as an aluminum heel-toe inlay anodized black, which allows for designed weight distribution, balance and feel.

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The major difference between Koepka’s TaylorMade putter last week and his Scotty Cameron this week is the Fastback has a short jet neck, designed to increase toe hang and rotation in the stroke. Koepka’s prototype Spider Tour V has an elongated L-neck, likely intended to make it more face-balanced.

“Something I feel like released on its own, something I’ve been trying to — been fighting a little bit, and I feel like it definitely releases a little bit,” Koepka said of the putter.

Koepka said he had been doing a lot of putting work in a home “little warehouse” with a putting studio, trying to hone his fundamentals like grip and alignment.

Interestingly, he also mentioned on Wednesday that being back on the PGA Tour this season has given him some new thoughts to explore with his bag, especially now that he is a gear-free agent after splitting from Cleveland/Srixon three weeks ago. Koepka said he had never explored use of a mini driver until seeing their usage on the PGA Tour.

“Maybe during the off-season, start doing a little bit of testing just because all of these options now are out there,” Koepka said. “Like the mini driver, I haven’t even — I don’t want to say, but it’s kind of like — it feels like a PGA Tour club because I never saw it until maybe the end of last year. I watched guys hit it. It’s only out here. I haven’t seen many other guys use it.

“Yeah, looking at that, it’s funny, I was talking to Shane Lowry at Zurich about it, and Augusta kind of suits it to the ground. Like you look at 1, it might be a perfect hole for that mini driver, 2, 5, 7, 9 is kind of perfect for it, 10. You can go down the list. Just little things like that, I guess, broadens your capabilities of options.”

Might we see a full Brooks Koepka bag makeover coming soon? Only time will tell.

Taylor Moore speeds up

Koepka was clipped by one shot Thursday for the overnight lead by Taylor Moore, who has a new driver and putter this week.

The driver may not look like a huge change on its face, as it’s still a Ping G440 K driver, but he’s gone to a head with a half-degree lower loft and more weight forward via hot melt. He’s also gone back to the Mitsubishi Diamana GT 60 TX shaft he used last season.

Why the sudden change for one of the 25 best drivers of the ball on the PGA Tour? Because Moore has gotten faster over the course of the season.

When Moore fit into the new 440 K last offseason, Ping Tour Rep Kenton Oates said his speed was down, in the mid-to-high 170s, which led them out of the GT and into a softer Diamana Whiteboard 63 X, not the TX flex he previously used. Oates said that’s not all that uncommon.

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“That happens for a lot of guys throughout the year. It’s cold on the West Coast. You’re coming out of the winter,” he told GOLF. “Then obviously playing a little warmer now.”

Moore went to the softer flex because he needed a little more spin and flight, but now he’s swinging about 4 mph faster, allowing them to go back to his old shaft and bring the loft back down.

“I would think he would stay in this for a really long time because he’s had success with it in the past and now it’s working in the head that he likes,” Oates said.

The putter change was something Moore has been working on with Ping Tour Rep Jeff Brown, who originally brought Moore in to Ping as a junior. Brown believed an Anser-style hosel would work best for Moore than the slant neck he was currently using.

The Ally Blue H, which has been finding a few bags of late, won out thanks to its square shape, which fits Moore’s visual preferences for alignment. It also has a flat milled face, as Moore likes to see the ball come off the face hot.

In his opening-round 62, he was 8th in SG: Putting and 27th in SG: OTT, so needless to say, both changes paid dividends quickly.

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 Jordan Spieth’s four-year-old Titleist TSi2 hybrid.

Odds and Ends

Some other gear changes and notes we’re tracking this week.

Si Woo Kim, Chris Kirk and Noah Goodwin all added Odyssey prototype putters … Hank Lebioda added a Titleist GTS2 10.0 driver and 15.0 fairway, marking the 70th player to put a GTS driver in play on the PGA Tour … Luke Clanton added P7CB 5- and 6-irons to his bag, giving him three models in his iron set … L.A.B. Golf launched its new VSN.1i mallet while Graphite Design launched three new Tour AD profiles.

3 things you should read/watch

A selection of GOLF content from the past week that may interest you.

What you can learn from Tommy Fleetwood’s mini-driver setup – Jake Morrow dives into the mini driver setup of golf’s most prolific mini driver user

What happens when JAKE KNAPP hits a game improvement iron!? – We ran PGA Tour winner Jake Knapp through each of the irons in PXG’s lineup just to see what would happen.

After PGA win, Aaron Rai’s Spider is the hottest putter on Tour – After winning the PGA Championship, TaylorMade’s Spider putter has won five of the last six majors and Rai is the first to do so without a contract.

The author welcomes your comments at Jack.Hirsh@golf.com.

Want to overhaul your bag in 2026? Find a club-fitting location near you at True Spec Golf.

The post What Brooks Koepka said about new putter before season-best round | Tour Report appeared first on Golf.

The post Golf’s rarest club is making a PGA Championship appearance | Tour Report appeared first on Golf.

The post Golf’s rarest club is making a PGA Championship appearance | Tour Report appeared first on Golf.

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.

After one round, Aronimink is proving more difficult off the tee than originally anticipated, and one of the early leaders is navigating that challenge with golf’s rarest club.

Yes, Aldrich Potgieter is gaming a 1-iron this week, and it’s helped him contend at the PGA Championship (tied for the lead after the first round and the solo leader at the time of this writing on Friday).

Off-the-tee play wasn’t much of a story in the lead-up at Aronimink, which is hosting a PGA for the first time in 64 years. The Donald Ross gem measures just 7,394 yards, short by modern major championship standards, and players contemplated bomb-and-gouge strategies for the layout.

“Strategy off the tee is pretty nonexistent,” Rory McIlroy said in his pre-tournament press conference. “It’s basically bash driver down there and then figure it out from there. … When these traditional golf courses take a lot of trees out, it makes strategy not as much of a concern off the tee.”

That comment came back to bite McIlroy, as he hit just 5 of 14 fairways and lost nearly a half shot to the field off the tee in an opening-round 74. Turns out the wild undulations and firm conditions of Aronimink’s fairways made them difficult to hold. Missing the fairway also proved unexpectedly penal, as the average proximity difference between the fairway and not on Thursday morning was nearly six feet worse than the average PGA Tour host course, according to Justin Ray.

While many players opted to keep their typical top-of-bag setups, Potgieter took the interesting approach of adding a 1-iron in addition to his regular PXG 2-iron. The slightly longer build checked in at just over 15 degrees of loft, which gave the club a touch of right bias.

Now, like many of the 1-irons you see on the PGA Tour from time to time, this isn’t your grandfather’s 1-iron. This is a hollow-bodied club with a graphite shaft designed to get the ball in the air. I wouldn’t advise anyone to hold Potgieter’s 1-iron (which he referred to as a 3-wood in a press conference) up during a lightning storm.

The club is rare by PGA Tour standards and if ever seen, it’s usually during the Open Championship or Scottish Open.

But Potgeiter’s 1-iron has some unique abilities even among other butter knives. As PXG’s Justin Shepherd told GOLF, the new Gen 8 driving iron’s weight adjustability allowed Potgieter to add the club in place of his fairway wood because they could straighten out his ball flight more easily.

“Playing with the weight and lie angle, as I went a little more upright … he actually was losing some ball speed, so he obviously wasn’t hitting it as well,” Shepherd said. “We moved back to the lie angle fit, then we could work on the ball flight without changing the two things.”

Potgieter’s 1-iron features a 12g weight in the heel and a 7g weight in the toe to help him turn it over. His 2-iron is more neutral.

With the 1-iron, which is 5/8 of an inch longer than the 2-iron with the same Nippon Modus GOST shaft, Potgieter carries the ball only a few yards farther than the 2-iron, but its runs out nearly 30 yards farther while reaching 170-172 mph ball speeds.

While Potgieter hit driver off the tee 11 times on Thursday, his driving irons came in handy on three tee shots and his approach to the par-5 9th. It all added up to a share of the first-round lead.

Flatstick swaps

One thing that has rung true about the challenge of Aronimink has been the difficulty of its signature Donald Ross domed greens. Was that the reason a number of players chose to make putter changes when tweaks during major weeks are usually more subtle?

The most notable move was Brooks Koepka, who moved into a new TaylorMade 2026 Spider Tour V from his previous 2025 Spider Tour X. Koepka reportedly broke his previous putter at the One Flight Myrtle Beach Classic last week, necessitating the change. He spent several hours working through various mallet putters on Monday before settling on the new Spider Tour V.

We still don’t know much on the new Spider Tour V, which appears to have been redesigned from the previous version that’s in Shane Lowry’s bag. The previous Spider Tour V was the most forward CG mallet in the TaylorMade lineup, making it feel like a blade.

Koepka’s new Tour V appears more compact and the weight ports are forward in the head, which seems to indicate a similar goal. Koepka is likely looking to find something that feels like his previous Scotty Cameron Newport 2 Teryllium putters.

But more surprising was that Alex Fitzpatrick, fresh off a Cinderella three-week run after winning the Zurich Classic team event, swapped putters.

The young Fitzpatrick went from his silver Odyssey Ai-ONE No. 7 S to a Navy Ai-ONE No. 7 CH.

While the change from silver to navy is interesting, it turns out the change from a slant neck to a crank hosel is the key switch.

Odyssey Ai-DUAL #7 S Custom Putter

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Odyssey reps Harry Shih and Cody Hale handled the change because Fitzpatrick, a gear-free agent, said he felt like he was leaving the face open at impact. In his first two events as a PGA Tour member, Fitzpatrick lost nearly a half-shot per round on the greens.

“Just gave him more face awareness,” Shih told GOLF. “He felt like the face was hanging open so we went to the crank so he could square the face up easier. Quintic data confirmed it.”

Hale added that the Crank Hosel matched his stroke rotation better.

“We also went 1 degree more upright to better match the shaft plane to his forearms, which he and his putting coach Andy Paisley like to see in his arm structure,” Hale said.

Sahith Theegala also went back to his Anser 2 gamer after a one-week trial with an Ally Blue H mallet.

And continuing a trend of what might become the PGA Tour’s next hot putter, Tom Hoge added a new Phantom 9.5R, the same model putter Cameron Young uses and Justin Thomas recently added.

Spieth goes longer; Fowler goes shorter

Thursday was a bit of a trip back in time for Jordan Spieth as he chases the career Grand Slam, but it was the driver that was dialed for Spieth, unlike how it was 10 years ago.

Spieth gained 1.93 strokes off the tee on the field in Round 1, ranked second in the field. He missed just two fairways.

Turns out he made a tweak to his GTS2 driver last week after putting it in play at Doral, going to a longer, 46″ Fujikura Ventus Black shaft.

Thanks to the increased stability of the GTS2 head he found he was able to go longer and down in loft (from 10 to 9) to get more speed. Spieth also has his GTS2 front weighted with 9g in the front and 3g in the back to get even more speed.

He gained .663 strokes a round off the tee at the Cadillac but then picked up more than a stroke a day at the Truist with the longer build. Since adding the GTS2, he’s gone from 113th in SG: Off the Tee to 77th in just two weeks.

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But on the flip side, Rickie Fowler shortened his driver this week.

After using a 45″ driver for the last few weeks, Fowler is back again using a shorter build, but this time at 43.25″, almost certainly the shortest driver on the PGA Tour. In fact, it’s the same length as his mini driver.

Fowler is having one of his most accurate seasons on the PGA Tour in terms of driving accuracy and has used a 44.125″ driver for much of the season. He opened with an even-par 70 on Thursday.

Golf Pride again dominates grip count

As is typical, the overwhelming No. 1 grip at the PGA Championship was Golf Pride.

All but 11 of the 156 players in the field at Aronimink played Golf Pride grips this week, continuing the most dominant run in golf equipment.

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. For this week, check out Christiaan Bezuidenhout’s new PXG 0317 Tour prototype irons.

Odds and Ends

Some other gear changes and notes we’re tracking this week.

Christiaan Bezuidenhout added PXG’s 0317 Tour Proto irons (above) with KBS Tour 125 S+ shafts … Lucas Glover switched to the GTS2 driver after adding the fairway woods last week … Max Greyserman added Callaway’s Quantum TD TD driver with Ventus Blue 6-X … Viktor Hovland added a Ping G440 Max 3-wood and G440 3-hybrid to his bag … Greyserman and Ryo Hisastune switched to Vokey’s A+ grind to get faster through the turf … Haotong Li is following in the footsteps of Fowler and Gary Woodland by adding a Scotty Cameron GOLO 7 CS … Denny McCarthy (GTS2 9.0) and Luke Donald (GTS3 9.0) added new Titleist GTS drivers non-contracted … Fujikura lead the driver shaft count with 46.2% of the field … Maverick McNealy switched to the new Fujikura Ventus TR Black+ 6-X in his driver.

3 things you should read/watch

A selection of GOLF content from the past week that may interest you.

Hideki Matsuyama is golf’s most notorious tester. Here’s what makes his bag | Bag Spy – Take a deep dive into the bag of Hideki Matsuyama and see why, even as he tests more than anyone, he continues to play mostly the same stuff.

This Aronimink feature has pros re-thinking their wedge setup at the PGA – Aronimink is the first chance for PGA Tour players to see bent grass this season. See what Vokey’s Aaron Dill says is the key to handling northeastern turf.

Cameron Young reportedly playing golf ball that would conform under rollback – Cameron Young revealed on Wednesday that his Titleist Pro V1x Double Dot golf ball passed the new rolled back conformance test. See what that means and what it’s a big deal.

The author welcomes your comments at Jack.Hirsh@golf.com.

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The post Justin Thomas’ new putter takes a page from Cam Young | Tour Report appeared first on Golf.

The post Justin Thomas’ new putter takes a page from Cam Young | Tour Report appeared first on Golf.

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.

Out on the PGA Tour, when one player starts to have success with something, it doesn’t take long for others to take notice and try it for themselves.

Specifically, putters catch fire more often than other clubs.

In recent years, the Jailbird craze of 2023 is an obvious example, with Rickie Fowler, Wyndham Clark and Keegan Bradley all winniung with Jailbird Cruisers in the span of two months. This year, hordes of pros have flocked to TaylorMade’s Spider putters after the boatloads of wins by Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy.

Now, Cam Young’s Phantom 9.5R has the potential to be the next hot putter.

This week, Justin Thomas made a switch to an essential copy of the putter after Young won the Players Championship and the Cadillac Championship over the past month and a half.

It’s Thomas’ second switch in a month after he benched his Phantom 5.5 gamer midway through the RBC Heritage last month and played well on the weekend using a backup Newport 2 GSS blade.

He continued using that putter last week, but at Quail Hollow, he wanted to find something that would stick long term. He had worked himself nearly back to 0 strokes gained: putting after a disastrous start to his season at Bay Hill, before a rough opening two rounds at Harbour Town. He lost strokes with the blade last week in Miami.

“Some of it is just calibration. … some of it is just, he, you know, the potential of making good putts but not seeing anything go in type of thing,” Scotty Cameron Tour Rep Brad Cloke told GOLF. “It just seemed like he kind of wanted to start a little bit from scratch this week.”

So he asked for a couple of new putters, including some 9.2Rs, a shape he used previously, and a copy of Cam Young’s 9.5R.

“I literally texted Cameron’s guys and said, ‘Just give me Cam’s putter,'” Thomas said Friday, who played with Young the first two days.

Not an uncommon request.

Scotty Cameron 2026 Phantom 9.2R Custom Putter

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“Obviously, with the success that Cam is having … these guys are as they see success and they want to see what it’s all about potentially,” Cloke said.

In addition to having a low-bend shaft that mimics the look and toe hang of a jet neck, Thomas’s 5.5 also has smooth face milling that makes it a bit louder-sounding and firmer.

His new putter matches Young’s so it has mid-milled face, but he’s actually preferred the milling on the new 9.5R.

“It was more so of like, ‘Hey, this is different, but I’m kind of liking it,'” Cloke said. “The comment that I heard from him was about feel, but it was more so like, ‘I’m actually surprised I like the way this feels.’”

While the putter is Thomas’ spec length and has his grip, it has the same graphite shaft Young uses and a full-length sight line. Thomas found that made it super easy to line up.

“It’s just so hard to putt well if you don’t have confidence, and so hard to have confidence unless you’re seeing it go in more often,” Thomas said. “So I really, really worked hard Monday through Wednesday on my speed and start line and everything to where I just felt like I was in a better place and more freed up when I was putting.”

Through two rounds, it’s been highly successful as Thomas sits at seven under going into the weekend and is gaining nearly three strokes on the field, good for top 10 in the stat.

Sahith Theegala’s newest putter wasn’t random, finally

While the biggest story in Ping putters was Tony Finau’s bizarre technique with a prototype Oslo Onset long putter early in the week, he ended up going back to the Scottsdale Tec Ally Blue Onset he switched to in February.

In fact, Ping’s Ally Blue headshape had a solid week, earning two high-profile conversions, one so surprising Ping Tour Rep Kenton Oates didn’t even take it seriously.

Sahith Theegala, who, as we profiled in Bag Spy this week, loves to practice with random putters every week on the PGA Tour before returning to his longtime Anser gamer, was losing a putting contest on the practice green using an Ally Blue H when Oates hollered over for him to try his gamer.

“He goes, ‘This is what I used Sunday of Cadillac,'” Oates said. “And I go, ‘What? 
He goes, ‘Yeah, I think I’m going to use it on Thursday.'”

Theegala followed through on Thursday in the first round of the Truist Championship and kept it in the bag for Friday as well.

Turns out, this wasn’t another random practice putter for Theegala; this is something he worked on with Ping Principal Design Engineer Tony Serrano. He’s actually had the putter for over a year.

Theegala started working on a mallet putter with Serrano, feeling like he could gain forgiveness over his Anser blade.

“The key thing for him is, he has a certain stroke, a certain rotation in his stroke that requires something with some toe down,” Serrano said. “He’s always played an Anser 2 that hang at that 40 or 42 degrees that work perfectly for his stroke.”

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The Ally Blue H has the same plumber’s neck hosel Theegala is used to and similar CG and toe hang properties, making it a more natural transition.

At the RSM Classic last November, Serrano and Theegala spent lots of time with a Scottsdale Tec Ally Blue H, but it was the PLD Milled version that ended up going in the bag. Theegala ended up putting a counterbalance grip on it as well, but Serrano didn’t know when or why he added that himself.

A new Ally Blue H is also in the bag of Kristoffer Reitan as the PGA Tour rookie finds himself three off the lead heading into the weekend.

Reitan’s PLD Milled Ally Blue H is virtually identical to the Scottsdale Tec version, complete with the aluminum head, steel sole plate and PEBAX insert. But it was made from scratch to have an uninterrupted sight line.

After visiting Ping’s PLD Putting Lab in February, the Ping team discovered that Reitan needed a putter with more toe hang than the face-balanced model he was using. He loved the Scottsdale TEC feel and visual with the white head, but just wanted a full sight line.

Serrano said it was simply easier to make him a new PLD head than repurpose an existing Scottsdale TEC.

Rory McIlroy returns to Qi4D 3-wood

In his first event back since winning his second green jacket, Rory McIlroy changed the one club he switched out for his his big Masters win.

After using a Qi4D fairway wood since November, McIlroy went back to his Qi10 3-wood for the Masters, and promptly won his fifth straight major for the club.

But that turns out to be a short-term reversion for McIlroy as he’s back in a Qi4D 3-wood at Quail Hollow, where he’s won four times.

McIlroy said on Wednesday the switch was made because his Qi4D had a bit of a left miss.

“I had been using the 4D 3-wood at the start of the season. I noticed that it just had a little bit of a left bias in it,” McIlroy said. “So I went back to an old Qi10 for a while. But that wasn’t, it really wasn’t spinning enough. It’s more like a mini driver than a 3-wood.”

McIlroy actually said that kind of club could be useful at the Memorial, seemingly teasing he’ll use it at Muirfield Village next month, but for this week at Quail Hollow and next week at the PGA Championship, he wanted something with a bit more spin.

He started working on a new 3-wood with the TaylorMade team.

TaylorMade Qi4D Custom Fairway Wood

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.

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“Post-Augusta we went back and looked at the data and he was actually getting center strikes that were drawing too much,” TaylorMade Tour rep Keith Sbarbaro said. “So the club was acting like he was toeing it. It was kind of gear-affecting left.
 
“So what we did is we moved the CG a little more toward the toe to try and square that up. The other thing he was getting some under-spinning shots that were knuckling a little bit.”

With the new 3-wood, Sbarbaro said McIlroy hit eight shots that all spun between 3,100 and 3,300 RPM and flew right on target. That’ll do!

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. For this week, check out Justin Thomas’ 10-plus-year old Titleist 915Fd 5-wood.

Odds and Ends

Some other gear changes and notes we’re tracking this week.

Reitan also has a new Ping G440 K driver with a Mitsubishi Tensei 1K Pro White shaft. … Titleist launched the GTS300 Mini Driver on the PGA Tour this week, with the name suggesting it’s larger than its predecessor. … Brooks Koepka began his post-Srixon era with a new Grove XXIII staff bag and set of Vokey SM11 wedges, along with a rare WedgeWorks 60B Lob Wedge. … Lucas Glover added new GTS2 15.0 and 21.0 fairway woods. … Five players added new TaylorMade Qi4D fairways: Nico Echavarria (Qi4D 3-wood), Jason Day (Qi4D 9-wood), Robert MacIntyre (Qi4D 7-wood), Denny McCarthy (Qi4D Tour 3-wood) and Matt Wallace (Qi4D 7-wood) … McCarthy also switched to a Spider Tour X L-neck.

3 things you should read/watch

A selection of GOLF content from the past week that may interest you.

Sahith Theegala calls his own bag ‘weird.’ Here’s why it works for him | Bag Spy – Take a deep dive into one of the weirdest bags on the PGA Tour that goes driver to 4-wood to 3-iron to 9-wood at the top and then has two 8-irons later.

Bettinardi adds ‘Fitz’ models to its BB family of putters – After three wins this season, Bettinardi is releasing a limited number of Matt Fitzpatrick’s BB1FF and BB48F gamers to retail.

Cleveland releases limited edition set of legendary 588 Tour Action wedges – The Cleveland 588 wedge revolutionized the category. Now with Roger Cleveland back in the fold, the company is releasing a limited number of updated 588 sets.

The author welcomes your comments at Jack.Hirsh@golf.com.

Want to overhaul your bag in 2026? Find a club-fitting location near you at True Spec Golf.

The post Justin Thomas’ new putter takes a page from Cam Young | Tour Report appeared first on Golf.