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7 equipment takeaways from the PGA Tour Champions (including Bernhard Langer’s INCREDIBLE iron setup)

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During most weeks, GolfWRX.com reports live from the practice rounds of PGA Tour events, but occasionally we check out the Korn Ferry Tour, LPGA Tour, and PGA Tour Champions as well. To be honest, I personally think most amateurs can learn way more from the equipment setups on the LPGA and Champions Tour, but that’s another story for another day. I’ll save the gear lessons and get right to the seriously cool, custom, and throwback equipment that I spotted recently at Phoenix Country Club for the 2022 Charles Schwab Cup Championship.

Below are my 7 equipment takeaways from going inside the ropes at the Champions Tour season finale.

More photos from the Charles Schwab Cup Championship 

1) Miguel Angel’s fairway wood faces are DIMED out

Miguel Angel Jimenez uses three different Ping G425 Max fairway woods (14.5, 17.5 and 20.5 degrees), and each of them have similar wear marks directly in the center of the face – aside from the 7 wood, which has a slight skymark near the crown.

We also got a close look at the type of cigar that Jimenez smokes, if you’re into that kind of thing. It’s a Chateau de la Fuente Opus X Rare Estate Reserve from 1992, for those curious.

Miguel Angel Jimenez 2022 WITB (Charles Schwab Cup)

2) Stickers are a viable way to customize your clubs

Rocco Mediate customizes his Ping G400 driver using stickers, while his Artisan wedges are stamped the old-fashioned way.

See more of Rocco’s bag setup here

3) 50 Cent’s new favorite Champions Tour golfer?

Y.E. Yang’s custom “Yangsta” Vokey wedge deserves a remix of rapper 50 Cent’s popular “What Up, Gangsta?” song.

What up, Yangsta?

And, as always, his bag is so packed with hybrids that his longest iron the bag is a 7-iron!

More photos of Y.E. Yang’s bag, and more

4) K.J. Choi bag update

It’s always fun to see what clubs K.J. Choi is using, because he seems to switch it up so often. Most recently, he was using Srixon’s brand new ZX7 MKII irons, with a small strip of lead tape on the back cavity.

More photos of K.J. Choi’s bag

5) A TaylorMade xFT ZTP wedge spotted in the wild

When I was heading toward Padraig Harrington’s bag to see what irons and wedges he was playing these days, I was NOT expecting to see an old TaylorMade XFT ZTP 58-degree wedge from 2010. I can’t help but get nostalgic seeing old clubs like this still being used by professionals.

Check out more photos of Padraig’s setup here

6) Goosen’s putter

Retief Goosen’s gamer putter used to be an Odyssey O-Works 2-ball. I’m not sure you can consider it a 2-ball putter anymore, since the crown is completely blacked out with a single white alignment line. Now it’s just the Odyssey O-Works “Goose Proto,” as I like to call it.

7) Bernhard’s tools

Bernhard Langer doesn’t use iron “sets,” per se, because he mostly crafts his bag setup by selecting individual clubs that are tasked with specific jobs and yardages to hit. As such, most of his irons are custom built exactly to his preferences. He uses Adams Idea Pro hybrids, Tour Edge Exotics CBX Forged long irons, Artisan Golf 8-9 irons, and a custom Tour Edge Exotics BL Proto pitching wedge. It’s seriously fascinating to analyze his clubs.

If you want to know more about his process and his work with master craftsman Mike Taylor at Artisan Golf, check out this story I wrote a few years back for pgatour.com.

He also uses an Odyssey White Hot 2-ball, with a heaping of lead tape on the sole and a permanent markered thick black line on the crown. As for his grip on the longer putter, he uses two split Golf Pride Tour Velvet grips.

Incredible.

More photos from the Charles Schwab Cup Championship 

He played on the Hawaii Pacific University Men's Golf team and earned a Masters degree in Communications. He also played college golf at Rutgers University, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism.

6 Comments

6 Comments

  1. Donna Young

    Dec 2, 2022 at 11:22 am

    How about showing us what’s in the bags of LPGA players???? I had hoped you would at least share the LPGA players winners of the Majors bag set up. As you perviously stated the majority of readers could learn a great deal more from the set of LPGA Player’s and Champion tour players bag set ups.

  2. Pingback: The Wedge Guy: Why modern irons aren't making sense to me - Fly Pin High

  3. Pingback: The Wedge Guy: Why modern irons don’t make sense to me – GolfWRX

  4. Benny

    Nov 22, 2022 at 4:42 pm

    so cool and well done. Thank you. Keep them coming please!!

  5. Pingback: Rahm doubles down - Fly Pin High

  6. Pingback: Morning 9: Leishman on potential Masters ban I Rahm doubles down I Ko nabs big prize – GolfWRX

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Whats in the Bag

Christiaan Maas WITB 2026 (June)

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Driver: TaylorMade Qi4D LS (8 degrees)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus TR Blue 6 X

3-wood: TaylorMade Qi10 (15 degrees)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Black 9 TX

Irons: TaylorMade P770 (3), TaylorMade P7CB (4), TaylorMade P7TW (5-PW)
Shafts: Fujikura Ventus Black HB 10 X, True Temper Dynamic Gold X100

Wedges: TaylorMade Prototype (50-SB09), TaylorMade MG5 (56-HB12, 60-LV07)
Shafts: True Temper Dynamic Gold S400

Putter: TaylorMade TP Juno

Ball: Titleist Pro V1x

Grips: Golf Pride Tour Velvet Cord

Check out more in-hand photos of Christiaan Maas’ clubs here.

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Equipment

TaylorMade MySpider Tour and Tour X: More customizable build options now available

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TaylorMade Golf’s MySpider program underwent a substantial overhaul over the last month. Firstly, the company launched the option to customize the Spider ZT model, and now the program has returned with the MySpider Tour and MySpider Tour X.

The revamped page now gives golfers complete control over every visual and functional detail of their putter on the popular Tour and Tour X head, with every cosmetic idea thought of. In MySpider Tour, golfers can choose from four head finishes, 16 paint fill colors, nine Surlyn face insert colors, three aluminum insert options, six sightline configurations, and four hosel options — L-neck, small slant, double bend, center shaft. Six sightline options are available in MySpider Tour, including the optically engineered True Path alignment system. MySpider Tour X gives builders the option of four head finishes, four hosel configurations, and five sightline options, also including True Path alignment.

One of the more interesting features of the new MySpider program is the availability of three distinct face insert options. Along with the usual Surlyn Pure Roll insert trusted by Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy, which can be customized from nine colors, golfers can now also select firmer options. Two are offered with the black aluminum Pure Roll insert, slightly firmer than the traditional insert, or for the firmest feel, golfers can choose from two colors of milled aluminum inserts.

Another fun addition to the MySpider Tour is the ability to use the “Tommy Sightline.” The custom alignment aid design, which was first drawn onto Tommy Fleetwood’s putter by PGA Tour Rep James Holley, is based on the milled sightline on his Spider ZT head. There are five shorter lines on the left and right of a longer central line serving as the traditional short line alignment aid.

See below for the full specifications sheet for MySpider Tour and Tour X:

MySpider Tour

MySpider Tour X

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Equipment

Then and now: Comparing Rory McIlroy’s current setup to his record-breaking 2019 Canadian Open victory

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In Rory McIlroy’s first appearance at the 2019 RBC Canadian Open, he crushed the record books to earn his 16th PGA Tour title in dominating fashion, winning by seven shots over Shane Lowry and Webb Simpson.

McIlroy’s score of 22-under-par 258 is the lowest 72-hole score to date at the Canadian Open, and his closing 61 is also the best final-round score in the history of one of golf’s oldest tournaments. Finally, with his win in 2019, McIlroy became only the sixth player to win the career Triple Crown, adding to his victories at the U.S. Open in 2011 and The Open Championship in 2014, joining Tommy Armour, Walter Hagen, Arnold Palmer, Lee Trevino and Tiger Woods in a coveted list.

So, with that, why not compare his current setup to the clubs he used to break all the records?

Driver

2019: TaylorMade M5 (9 degrees), Shaft: Mitsubishi Tensei CK Pro White 70 TX
2026: TaylorMade Qi4D (9 degrees @8), Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Black 7X (45 5/8 inches)

McIroy led the Tour in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee in 2019; he’s doing the same in 2026. Between now and then, McIlroy has switched from the Mitsubishi Tensei CK Pro White 70 TX (a shaft with slightly more feeling in the tip) to the original Fujikura Ventus Black 7X, having just made the change to the heavier version from playing the 60X.

What’s interesting about McIlroy’s 2019 setup is that the weighting on his driver is actually set in the high-draw setting, using the T-Track weighting system, whereas in the Qi4D, he’s currently using a heavily rear-weighted setup. (Two 13-gram weights in the rear and only two 4-gram front weights.)

The TaylorMade M5 driver he played in during his Canadian Open win was the company’s first head that they claimed to design to initially exceed the USGA’s COR limit, and then injected with tuning resin to bring it back in bounds.

Fairway woods

2019: TaylorMade M6 3-wood (15 degrees), Shaft: Mitsubishi Tensei CK Pro White 80 TX; TaylorMade M5 5-wood (19 degrees), Shaft: Mitsubishi Tensei CK Pro White 90 TX
2026: TaylorMade Qi4D 3-wood (15 degrees), Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Black 8X; TaylorMade Qi4D 5-wood (18 degrees), Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Black 9X

The TaylorMade M6 fairway wood that McIlroy was using during the 2019 season is still in the bag of some of the best golfers on Tour in 2026. Just check out Justin Rose’s winning setup from the Farmers Insurance Open earlier this year. This year, though, McIlroy has still been searching for his top-end-of-the-bag setup, having played both the new Qi4D and the Qi10, which he won the Masters with.

The same shaft swap can be seen in the fairway woods as the driver, along with slightly less loft on the 5-wood.

Irons

2019: TaylorMade P750 (4) Buy here, TaylorMade P730 (5-9), Shafts: Project X 7.0
2026: TaylorMade P760 (4), TaylorMade Rors Proto (5-9), Shafts: Project X 7.0

The biggest difference between McIlroy’s custom set and the stock P730s is the groove design. While the P730s were constructed with 14 MX-9 grooves on their milled faces, McIlroy’s proto heads instead use the higher-spinning, 16-groove layout of the TW2 grooves. Other big differences between the sets are that McIlroy’s 7- and 8-irons have thinner toplines, are 1 degree stronger in loft, and are 1/4 inch longer than the original P730 builds.

With McIlroy’s 4-iron, the switch from P750 to P760 sees a transition to a two-piece construction with Speed Foam in it, which allows McIlroy to launch the ball slightly higher, with more workability.

Wedges

2019: TaylorMade Milled Grind (48-09SB), TaylorMade MG Hi-Toe (52-09SB, 56-09SB, 60-LB09), Shafts: Project X Rifle 6.5
2026: TaylorMade MG5 (46-09SB, 50-09SB, 54-11SB, 60-08LB @61), Shafts: Project X 6.5 (46-54), Project X 6.5 Wedge (60)

Between 2019 and 2026, McIlroy’s focus on his short game has been much more apparent. It was the reason why he switched back to the TP5 golf ball, to help with launch, spin and control with his wedges leading up to his career Grand Slam victory in 2025. The most apparent changes to McIlroy’s wedge setup are his lofts and bounce. He’s slowly delofted his pitching to a sand wedge, but has increased the loft on the lob wedge, bending his current 60-degree to 61. With that, adding more loft to his lob wedge also slightly increases the bounce and leading-edge sit point, so, as a result, he plays a lower-bounce lob wedge compared to 2019. The MG5 wedges are also softer than the first Milled Grind option from 2019. McIlroy also no longer plays the full-face grooves found on the Hi-Toe.

Putter

2019: TaylorMade Spider X
2026: TaylorMade Spider Tour X

Notice anything similar. Yes, the copper finish on Rory McIlroy’s Spider X putter in 2019 is a slightly more reflective finish than the recently released torched PVD finish. McIlroy was using the True Path alignment system, but now uses only a single white sightline.

Ball

2019: 2019 TaylorMade TP5 (#22)
2026: 2025 TaylorMade TP5 (RORS)

As mentioned above, McIlroy had transitioned from the TP5 to TP5x golf ball since his victory in Canada in 2019, but now is black with the same style of golf ball as his victory at Hamilton Golf & Country Club.

Grips

2019: Golf Pride Tour Velvet Cord
2026: Golf Pride MCC

Interesting, McIlroy actually used Golf Pride’s Tour Velvet Cord grips during his victory in 2019 (it was during a 2+ year switch to the corded TV) as opposed to his usual MCC grips, which he has played for most of his career.

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