Equipment

How one of the tour’s longest hitters is getting even longer

Published

3 months ago

Mar 25, 2026

Did Aldrich Potgieter really need more distance? He’s currently second on the PGA Tour in driving distance and ball speed, so potentially, there is margin for him to make up.

At the 2026 Texas Children’s Houston Open, he may just have found it, and some forgiveness to go with it.

Heading into the first of two stops in Texas before the season’s opening major championship, Pogeiter is looking to make some hefty changes to his driver setup as well as another pretty sizable change to the bottom end of his bag.

One of a few big-name stars to join the PXG ranks in the offseason, Potgieter started out 2026 playing the Lightning Tour head, equipped with a Fujikura Ventus 7 X VeloCore shaft. At Memorial Park Golf Course for the Houston Open, things have changed as he’s looking to use an unreleased Tour Max prototype along with the newly released Fujikura Ventus TR 7 X VeloCore+ shaft.

He’s one of the first to put the new shaft in play, and scarily, he can tame the stiffest Ventus shaft yet to find more ball speed.

“I hit it yesterday for the first time and it’s really good,” Potgieter said in Houston. “Picked up probably about 2 or 3 miles an hour ball speed, which is huge. So we’ll hopefully keep that out on the course. But no, it’s looking good.”

Not only has Potgieter found more distance, but more importantly for him, a better balance with that and forgiveness on mishits, thanks to increased bulge and roll on the Tour Max head along with the stability of the shaft.

“I feel like some of the miss-strikes are straightening up, I think it has a bit more bulge and rolls as well,” Potgieter said. “So yeah, we’re definitely looking forward to it. It’s been great on the range, so this is a big driving week for us as well on the golf course. So if we can hit a lot more fairways, it’ll be good.

“With the big head they shift more weight further back. I think that kind of gives us more forgiveness and find the right weight to put on that backside; that right balance is more important. So I think we were playing around with that a little bit more and we kind of found a nice sweet spot.”

Along with the changes to the top end of the back, Potgieter has also made a significant swap to his flatstick. As a long-time member of the Tour’s diminishing blade putter group, winning in Detroit with a Scotty Cameron 009M Tour Prototype, Potgieter had a short stint with L.A.B. Golf’s Link 2.1 HS blade during the Florida Swing. He’s now left the gang and moved into a TaylorMade Spider Tour X.

“I’ve been on the blade run for a little bit and I feel like when I’m playing really good, the blade’s probably the best thing, but when you’re off a little bit and there’s a couple of things that I’m working on and just when you have a little bit of mis-strike or something with that blade, your consistency just drops off,” Potgieter said. “So we tried the L.A.B. blade, but even with that a little bit it was difficult.

“So we went to the Spider this week and we’ve seen distance control and stuff like that. It’s been a lot better and so we’ll give that a go and it’s nice to experiment with some stuff, but you kind run out of time pretty quickly. So we’re trying to get something in the bag and keep it consistent and got a PXG kind of similar thing to that Spider that I’ll be trying out in the next couple of weeks, but trying to not change too much for Augusta coming up.”

The countdown is on with only two weeks remaining for Potgieter to pick his 14 clubs for the Masters.

Equipment

Slab city on the Korn Ferry Tour — Lead Tape Report

Published

17 hours ago

Jun 10, 2026

Andrew Von Lossow

This week, we have our Tour Photographer, Greg Moore, on the ground at the OccuNet Classic at Tascosa Golf Club in Amarillo, Texas, for the 14th event of the 2026 Korn Ferry Tour season. With that, we see some great things in the Lead Tape Report as we roll into Amarillo.

Joel Thelen

Monday Qualifier, Joel Thelen is in the field this week. He has played on the Korn Ferry Tour for a full season in 2023, and he is back in action this week. A couple of clubs caught my eye this week in his bag.

First off: His trusted Titleist 816 H2 hybrid. This club came out in October of 2015, and it still remains strong in the bag. Also, take a look at this Odyssey White Hot OG 7, putting a capital S in the 7S model. This custom neck has some impressive lean for an arm-lock-style putter. The bottom of the putter is covered in tape for optimal weighting.

Mitchell Meissner

Taking a look at Mitchell Meissner’s bag this week, we have some great lead tape coverage. Top to bottom working from fairway metals, irons, and wedges. We can see on the short irons and wedges that there is tape at the base of the grip, adding a little counterbalance. Along with that, some tape on the short irons and wedges as well. Moving to his putter, he rolls the Odyssey 7 Bird putter. Meissner putts left-handed and strikes the ball right-handed.

Whats in the Bag

Bud Cauley WITB 2026 (June)

Published

17 hours ago

Jun 10, 2026

Will Schube

Bud Cauley had >14 clubs in his bag when photographed prior to the Memorial Tournament.

Driver: Titleist GTS2 (8 degrees)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Black 6 X

3-wood: Titleist GTS3 (15 degrees, B1 SureFit setting)
Shaft: Mitsubishi Chemical Tensei 1K Pro Red 70 TX

7-wood: Titleist GTS3 (21 degrees, D1 SureFit setting)
Shaft: Mitsubishi Chemical Tensei 1K Pro Red 80 TX

Irons: Titleist U505 (3), Titleist 620 MB (4-9)
Shafts: Fujikura Ventus Black HB 8 X, True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue

Wedges: Titleist Vokey Design SM11 (48-10F, 52-12F, 56-14F), WedgeWorks (60-K*)
Shafts: True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400

Putters: Scotty Cameron Tour Prototype, Scotty Cameron GOLO 6.3 Prototype

Grips: Golf Pride Tour Velvet Align

Ball: Titleist Pro V1

See more in-hand photos of Bud Cauley’s clubs here.

Equipment

Name every set of irons you’ve owned – GolfWRXers discuss

Published

17 hours ago

Jun 10, 2026

Will Schube

In our forums, one user has offered up a prompt for the true sickos, inviting fellow forum members to share every set of irons they’ve ever owned. As to be expected, this is a lengthy forum topic.

@Lamosteve began:

Can you name every set of irons you’ve owned? Here’s mine

Spalding Dots
Spalding Eclipse
Ram Lazer FX
Lynx Parallax
Mizuno EZ Comp
Ben Hogans
Cleveland CG Red
Taylor Made R9s
PING i20
PING iE1
Taylor Made M6

Our members in the forum have been offering up their own collections. Here are a few posts from the thread, but make sure to check out the entire discussion and have your say at the link below.

macedan: “Started with a hand-me-down Golden Bear set from my brother when I was in high school, never really played more than once a year or got into the game until about summer of 2017. First purchased a set of Cleveland CG4’s (I actually really miss this set sometimes, soft & not terribly large for a GI iron), moved into Nike Vapor Fly’s by the end of the year. Those lasted until spring of 18 when I decided I wanted new, so I traded them in for TM Rbladez. Honestly, although I liked the Rbladez, poor decision on my part, I think this was really about the only time so far that after a week or two I was kicking myself for not staying with what I had. Rbladez stayed with me until late last summer when I switched to P790’s and (knock on wood) I am hoping this will be my longest lasting set.”
JimmyC59: “MacGregor Jack Nicklaus Triple Crown. Palmer The Standard. Still play these.”
jgrzask: “Tommy Armour 845u
Mizuno MP-32
Mizuno MP-33 (2 sets)
Bridgestone J33cb – still own
Srixon i-302 (2 sets) – still own
Tourstage X-Blades – still own
Mizuno Hot Metal – still own
Nike Forged Blades – still own
Titleist 714 AP1 – still own
Cobra Forged SS – still own”

Entire Thread: “Name every set of irons you’ve owned.”