Equipment

Tour Report: Putter switches and supporting your local pro shop at The Players Championship

Published

3 months ago

Mar 13, 2026

As the PGA Tour heads to the flagship event, The Players Championship, where better to start the first Tour Report of the season? We’re back with a complete rundown of gear and news stories seen at TPC Sawgrass, and we’ll continue to do this franchise throughout the year as the Tour makes it’s way from course to course and golfers continue to test and tinker with their setups.

Also, if you haven’t already, take some time to sit down and watch the first “Inside the Ropes” episode from The Players live on the GolfWRX YouTube page. You’ll also find it in the forums.

Anyway, let’s take a look at what happened in Northeast Florida ahead of The Players.

Wyndham Clark supports his local pro shop

With all the offerings pros have on-site at Tour events, trucks, reps, gadgets, and gizmos, Wyndham Clark went with a putter he pulled off the rack at his local pro shop.

“I hadn’t been putting my best, so I wanted to try some different putters, and I kind of narrowed it down to two or three, and I went to go put lead tape on one of them at the pro shop at Whisper Rock,” Clark told GolfWRX at The Players. “As I was kind of waiting there and looking, they had this putter and I said, ‘You know, can I try this?’

The shop-bought Bettinardi Antidote SB1 is one of many putters that Clark has tested over the last season or so, toiling with L.A.B.s, Jailbirds, unreleased Toulons, and Scotty Camerons.

Even if we hadn’t asked Clark about the Bettinardi backstory, it would be easy to tell that the putter came from retail – it still has the price sticker on it – but he’s had it long enough to slather the sole in lead tape and equipped it with a SuperStroke 2.0 PT grip.

The putter wasn’t the only switch for the 2023 U.S. Open champion before he teed it up at Sawgrass. He’s a newly establish equipment-free-agent, so Clark decided to add TaylorMade’s Qi4D driver into the lineup.

“It’s really nice to be able to basically hand-pick all 14 clubs versus being locked into having to play some, and sometimes there’s a lot of great club companies, but maybe they don’t make 14 great clubs, they might make 10 or 11,” Clark said on the free-agency.

Clark’s new Qi4D core model, at 10.5 degrees cranked a few notches lower, is shafted with Project X’s new Titan at 70 grams.

Read the full story here.

Maverick McNealy brings back the blade

The old saying, “absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

For Maverick McNealy, it helped him to the overnight lead Thursday at The Players.

He benched his Odyssey Toulon Prototype Santa Monica blade for a one-week experiment with a TaylorMade Spider Tour X at Riviera on the West Coast, but now he’s back with the blade and performing well with it at Sawgrass.

Currently, the Spider is in the hands of 25 golfers at The Players, and world Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4, but for McNealy, the mallet couldn’t match the muscle memory, and more importantly, the feel of the blade.

“The sound of this Toulon, for whatever reason, it just matches perfectly with my ear with the speed I’m trying to hit,” McNealy said on why the Toulon trumped the Spider. “… the slightly louder sound has helped with faster greens.”

Check out the full backstory about McNealy’s blade, one that was rejected by a certain Japanese superstar.

Aldrich Potgieter’s complete bag overhaul

The curious case of 14 club fever has hit the current PGA Tour Rookie of the Year.

Since winning for the first time on the Tour and in just nine months, Aldrich Potgieter has changed every club in his golf bag after his most-recent swap at The Players.

The big-hitting South African, who signed with PXG in the offseason, traded his Scotty Cameron 009M Tour Prototype for L.A.B.’s new Link 2.1 HS blade.

Potgieter, 21, who led the Tour in driving distance last season, has struggled with the flatstick this season, ranking 128th in SG: Putting. The Link 2.1 HS blade adopts L.A.B.’s new riser hosel developed originally in the OZ.1i HS lineup. Potgieter opted for a Diamana L.A.B. Putter Series shaft and what looks like a Grip Master Cabretta grip.

Take a look at his bag to start the season (minus the new L.A.B.)

Sungjae Im finally switches

Sungjae Im doesn’t change things often. But not starting his 2026 season, after some time away from the game to rehab a wrist injury, the South Korean is sporting a new look and new irons.

Im who had been using the 2019 version of Titliest’s T-Series T100 irons, transitioned into the 2025 T150s at Sawgrass.

“The Korean team did a great job at finding a model that hit all the things that he really liked about his older irons. Heel toe length, sole, things like that in a brand new product in T150. So, in talking to him, performance gain, maintain the look and feel that he really liked and that’s a win-win,” Titliest Tour Rep Nick Geyer told GolfWRX at Sawgrass. “He was in the first-gen T100. So a little bit larger heel to toe, a little bit larger sole typically. The 150 kind of hitting those marks, 100 to 100. I think the new T100 would probably look small to him. And I think that’s why he ended up going 150 again, from just a visual perspective. And then the added benefit of height, speed, all the kind of gains.”

Our Andrew Von Lossow couldn’t help but comment on Im’s irons as they’ve been stuck with Titleist’s custom-printed lead tape.

“One of the best things” @avl_ltc with high praise for Sungjae Im pic.twitter.com/gHxYRRWxu3

— GolfWRX (@GolfWRX) March 13, 2026

Hear from Geyer about the switch in this week’s “Inside the Ropes” episode.

Quick hits

Justin Rose was walking around Sawgrass with two putters in the bag ahead of The Players. His usual Scotty Cameron Phantom T-5 Tour Prototype and a new Axis 1 prototype putter. The new design incorporates tungsten weights in the toe and heel sections of the face, most likely to achieve a torque-free stroke, and a single-bend shaft.

See what the Axis looks like thanks to Greg Moore’s eagle-eyed camera skills.

Justin Thomas, who made his long-awaited return to golf last week at Bay Hill after needing back surgery, did so with a 2018 Titliest TS3 driver. It didn’t last long; he was back in the GT2 for TPC Sawgrass. It’s not too surprising, though, Thomas still uses a Titleist TS3 3-wood. What is interesting, though, is that Thomas has moved into Golf Pride’s Tour Velvet Align technology. The grip features a rib alignment aid to help golfers with clubhead awareness.

Take a look at JT’s bag from Bay Hill, with both old and new driver in the bag.

Club of the week

Take a look at the custom Bettinardi made for Englishman Harry Hall. The Tour’s third-best putter last year, surprisingly switched out of his Odyssey O-Works #1 Wide for, you guessed it, a TaylorMade Spider at Bay Hill.

Whats in the Bag

Christiaan Maas WITB 2026 (June)

Published

4 hours ago

Jun 11, 2026

GolfWRX Staff

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.

Equipment

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

Published

4 hours ago

Jun 11, 2026

Alistair Cameron

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

Equipment

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

Published

7 hours ago

Jun 11, 2026

Alistair Cameron

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.