Driving for Dough! The Most Played Drivers on the PGA Tour (2026 Update)

The driver is almost always the most talked about golf club in everyone’s bag.

Average golfers often watch with wonder as the best players on the PGA Tour smash the ball over 300 yards, and sometimes over 400 yards, down the middle of the fairway.

So as part of our ongoing yearly series looking at the most used clubs on the PGA Tour we at Golfing Focus wanted to take another in-depth look to uncover what drivers they use to achieve these huge distances.

Titleist’s GT3 is the most played driver among the top 100 PGA Tour pros with 16% choosing it, including Matt Fitzpatrick and Cameron Young. PING’s new G440 LST is the next most popular model with 13 playing it while Titleist’s GT2 ranks third, chosen by 8% of the top 100 including Patrick Cantlay and Justin Thomas.

Titleist drivers remain the most used brand among this select group with 34% using them but their share has dropped from a peak of 42% last year. PING has surged to 26% and the gap between the two has narrowed significantly.

The make and model of the most used drivers on the PGA Tour only tell us so much though.

When we looked at the drivers being used by this elite group it was also fascinating to see the variance in lofts and the multitude of different driver shafts being used.

It was also interesting to note what drivers the ‘free agents’ – in other words the PGA pros with the flexibility to use whatever driver they want – are using compared to those with endorsement deals!

Most Played Drivers on The PGA Tour – Top 100 Breakdown

The amount of equipment available to PGA Tour players is clearly on a different scale to anything that mere mortal amateurs can aspire to.

If a Tour pro wants to test a new driver, driver shaft or set up it’s immediately made available to them. And they can swap out drivers as often as they want from tournament to tournament or even practice session to practice session.

It’s no surprise therefore that we discovered 34 different models of driver being used by the top 100 pros on the PGA Tour but the big brands of Titleist, PING, TaylorMade and Callaway very much dominate accounting for 87 out of the 100 drivers in play.

Titleist’s Still No.1 But Their Growth Has Stalled

Golfing Focus has now carried out this pro driver study – the most in-depth anywhere on the web – four times since 2021 and the Titleist brand share story has taken an interesting turn.

After three consecutive studies showing Titleist’s share growing – from 27% in 2021, to 33% in 2023, to a peak of 42% in 2024 – their dominance has pulled back to 34% in our latest analysis.

Titleist drivers are still the most played among the top 100 PGA Tour pros but the gap to PING has definitely narrowed. PING held steady at 22% for three consecutive studies before growing to 26% this time around, largely driven by the popularity of their new G440 LST model.

Callaway remains in third with 15% while TaylorMade, the driver brand of choice for both Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy, has recovered to 12% after dropping to just 9% last year. Srixon drivers are used by 5 players with Cobra, PXG and Mizuno making up the remainder.

DRIVER BRAND	2021	2023	2024	2025/26
Titleist	27%	33%	42%	34%
PING	22%	22%	22%	26%
TaylorMade	–	19%	9%	12%
Callaway	–	16%	16%	15%
Srixon	–	6%	4%	5%

Equipment Free Agents – Does Choice Tell Us More?

You will note at this point though that we have not automatically then concluded that Titleist produces the most ‘popular’ drivers on the PGA Tour.

The topic of sponsorship must come into consideration when it comes to pro golfers’ choices as many are paid to play a particular brand of driver.

When we looked at the 19 pros listed as equipment ‘free agents’ – players who have the flexibility to use whatever drivers they like – we found a broadly similar pattern of driver preference, albeit with the PING and Titleist roles reversed.

PING driver models are the most common choice here and used by 8 out of the 19 (42%) free agents with the G430LST the most used model picked by 5 of them, including Denny McCarthy.

Titleist by comparison are used by 7 with players including Patrick Cantlay (GT2) and the Player’s Championship runner-up Matt Fitzpatrick (GT3) choosing them.

The real outliers among this group remain Aaron Rai who continues to use his trusty TaylorMade M6 driver – a model first produced back in 2019 – and Adam Schenk. The 2025 Butterfield Bermuda Champion goes even further back, gaming a PING G400 from 2017!

So although we must recognise that this is a small sample size of 19 pros it does appear that the choices of the PGA Tour’s equipment ‘free agents’ do not materially differ from their sponsored colleagues.

Can we only really take lessons from the choices of the ‘free agents’ when it comes to equipment choices or is there something to be learned from all the pros? Let us know your thoughts in the comments at the end of this post!

How Quickly Do Pros Upgrade Their Driver?

One question we are often asked when it comes the drivers pros use is how quickly the top PGA Tour pros move to the latest driver models?

The answer? Pretty quickly – but certainly not unverisally.

70% of the top 100 are gaming driver models from 2024 or 2025. And a further three players – Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy and Karl Vilips – are already gaming the 2026 TaylorMade Qi4D before it has even hit retail shelves.

But while the number of 2026 models being seen on Tour will more than likely increase as the season progresses it is equally noticeable that 23% of the top 100 PGA Tour pros are still playing 2022 or 2021 models, including Sam Burns, Viktor Hovland and the big hitting Ludvig Åberg.

And as we’ve already noted at the extremes, Aaron Rai’s 2019 TaylorMade M6 and Adam Schenk’s 2017 PING G400 prove that if a driver performs, some pros see no reason to change regardless of what’s new.

DRIVER MODEL YEAR	%. OF TOP 100 PGA PROS
2026	3%
2025	34%
2024	36%
2023	1%
2022	12%
2021	11%
2019	1%
2017	2%

Others meanwhile continue to carry both the older and newer models around on tour with them.

Justin Thomas for example had both a Titleist GT2 (2024) and TS3 (2019) in his bag at the Arnold Palmer Invitational in March with both set to the same lofts and fitted with the same Mitsubishi Diamana ZF 60 TX shaft.

Others including Tommy Fleetwood, Harry Hall and Rickie Fowler have been adding ‘mini drivers’ to their setups and we cover this small trend in more detail when we explore the fairway woods the PGA Tour pros use.

But what also becomes apparent when you look in detail at the drivers used by the best PGA Tour pros is the huge number of different setups that exist. Each driver is clearly custom fitted to a very exact extent for each player.

For example even though 6% out of the top 100 use a Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke Triple Diamond driver you can bet your last dollar when you look closely that there will be a unique set up for each player whether that be achieved through an adjustment to the loft, set up or shaft.

So to give the full picture of the drivers being used on Tour let’s now move on to the different lofts and driver shafts the PGA Tour pros use in the varying models of driver they play.

DRIVER BRAND	%. OF TOP 100 PGA PROS (Equipment free agents in italics)	MOST USED DRIVER MODEL
Titleist	34% (including Cameron Young, Patrick Cantlay, Russell Henley, Justin Thomas, Matt Fitzpatrick, Jordan Speith, Ludvig Åberg, Brian Harman, Robert MacIntyre)	GT3
PING	26% (inc. Corey Conners, Keegan Bradley, Chris Gotterup, Viktor Hovland, Harris English, Jason Day, Adam Schenk, Harry Hall, Tony Finau)	PING G440 LST
Callaway	15% (inc. Xander Schauffele, Sam Burns, Justin Rose, Si Woo Kim, Emiliano Grillo, Sepp Straka, Thomas Detry)	Paradym Ai Smoke Triple Diamond
TaylorMade	12% (inc. Rory McIlroy, Tommy Fleetwood, Collin Morikawa, Scottie Scheffler, Maverick McNealy, Aaron Rai)	Qi35 LS Qi35
Srixon	5% (inc. Ryan Fox, Hideki Matsuyama, Shane Lowry)	ZXi  ZXi LS
Cobra	3% (inc. Rickie Fowler)	DS-Adapt X
PXG	3% (inc. Eric Cole)	0311 Black Ops Tour-1 + 2
Mizuno	2% (inc. Keith Mitchell)	ST-X 230

That’s a setup you won’t find anywhere on the PGA Tour and one that only someone with DeChambeau’s unique combination of speed and skill could get away with.

What Loft Driver Do PGA Pros Use? It Starts With a 9 Most of the Time

Once upon a time a driver used to come with one loft option and players were stuck with it.

Modern golf technology has moved on hugely since then and the loft options available to golfers now, especially at the elite PGA Tour level, are incredible.

The Titleist SureFit Hosel system, for example, features a sleeve and ring setup each with 4 settings. As a result, it enables 16 unique loft and lie angle combinations with a precision of up to 0.75 degrees between different options.

The players on the PGA Tour are among the best in the business and when it comes to the degree of driver they use it seems clear that the exactness with which they approach it and their overall driver set-up is part of the reason they are so successful.

• 9º remains the most used driver loft among the top 100 PGA Tour pros with 37% setting up with it, including Corey Conners and Rory McIlroy.
• 15% of this group now play a 10.5 degree lofted driver – making it the second most common choice
• 9% play an 8º driver including Scottie Scheffler and Justin Thomas.

Sam Stevens’ preferred driver loft of 6.5 degrees is the lowest in the top 100 with Ryan Gerard’s 11.75º Titleist GT3 setup the highest.

It is common also for the top pros to change the loft of their driver occasionally depending on what the course they are playing demands but below is the current breakdown of the 19 different driver lofts played by the top 100 PGA Tour pros.

A Note on LIV Tour Drivers

While this analysis focuses on the PGA Tour it’s worth a brief mention of the biggest hitter on the LIV Tour.

Bryson DeChambeau – the only player in professional golf to have recorded a 400+ yard drive in competition – uses a Krank Formula Fire LD driver set to just 6 degrees and bent down to 5 degrees. His shaft is a Project X Prototype D70.

The Most Played Driver Shaft on the PGA Tour? Don’t Forget The Weight!

PGA Tour pros are very precise with the setup of their drivers and nowhere is that more evident than when it comes to the shafts they choose to use with the longest club in their bag. (Assuming of course they’re not carrying a longer broom handle putter!)

Each time Golfing Focus has carried out its’ analysis of the driver shafts used by the top 100 players on the PGA Tour we have found over 70 different models being fitted – and that diversity continues in our latest study.

Fujikura’s Ventus Black 6X remains the most used driver shaft among the top 100 PGA Tour pros with 8% playing it, including Rory McIlroy, Keegan Bradley and Ludvig Åberg.

The Ventus Black 7X is the next most popular driver shaft chosen by 6 players, including Scottie Scheffler.

Every single shaft in the top 10 most used is X-Stiff or Tour X-Stiff flex. You won’t find a regular or stiff flex driver shaft anywhere in the top 100.

Fujikura’s Dominance Only Grows

The most notable trend across all four of our studies is the relentless growth of Fujikura driver shafts among the top 100 PGA Tour pros.

Fujikura’s share has grown from 28% in 2021, to 34% in 2023, to 38% in 2024, and now to a commanding 43% in our latest analysis, with the Ventus family accounting for the vast majority.

Mitsubishi driver shafts remain the second most used brand at 28% – primarily their Diamana range – meaning these two Japanese shaft manufacturers together account for 71% of all driver shafts in the top 100.

True Temper’s share of the driver shafts among this group meanwhile has dropped from 18% to 13%, while Graphite Design holds at 10%.

Scottie Scheffler’s choice, Fujikura’s Ventus Black 7X driver shaft, is the third most common with 5% choosing it and overall the Ventus ‘family’ of driver shafts account for 34% of the driver shafts used by this select group.

While this data points to Fujikura shafts being the most used driver shaft brand with 38% of the top 100 PGA Tour pros using one Mitsubishi driver shafts still account for 1 in 4 of the driver shafts used by the top PGA pros.

The difference when it comes to Mitsubishi is that there is no one dominant individual shaft model among those chosen by the top 100 although their Diamana and Tensei driver shaft ranges account for 14% and 10% respectively of all the driver shafts used by these elite golfers.

That almost every one of the top 100 pros is using a driver shaft that is unique to them however shows how much care the best players in the world take when it comes to making their choice and that attention to detail is again clearly evident when it comes to the driver shaft weights they opt for.

The most popular driver shaft weight used by the top 100 PGA Tour pros is 65g with 22% of players selecting it, including Rory McIlroy arguably the best driver of the ball on the PGA Tour over the last decade or more.

The most popular driver shaft weight used by the top 100 PGA Tour pros is in the 65-69g range with 41% of players selecting it, including Tommy Fleetwood and Patrick Cantlay.

25% then opt for heavier shafts of 75-79g, including Scottie Scheffler and Sam Burns, while 15% play shafts in the 70-74g range.

At the extremes, Brian Harman uses one of the lightest driver shafts at under 60g while Hideki Matsuyama opts for one of the heaviest at 86g.

Interestingly while our analysis of the most popular shafts on the PGA Tour across all their clubs shows that True Temper is the preferred shaft choice amongst the irons used by the top 100 this is clearly not the case with driver shafts where Fujikura’s dominance only continues to grow.

BRAND OF DRIVER SHAFT	% OF TOP 100 PGA TOUR PROS USING BRAND (Equipment free agents in italics)	BRAND’S MOST USED SHAFT
Fujikura	43%	Ventus Black 6X Check eBay
Mitsubishi	28%	Diamana WB 63 TX
True Temper	13%	Project X HZRDUS Smoke Black 70 TX
Graphite Design	10%	Tour AD DI 7 X Check eBay
UST Mamiya	4%	LIN-Q M40X White 6F5
Accra	2%	TZ6 ST 60 M5 Check eBay

Before you go ….

With driver swingspeeds of 116mph on average on the PGA Tour the driver choices of the top 100 may not feel that relevant to some regular amateurs who have an average driver swingspeed of a much lower 93.4mph.

So check out our similarly detailed in-depth looks at the drivers the best pros on the Champions Tour and LPGA Tour are using with average swingspeeds of 106mph and 96mph respectively according to Trackman.

What Drives the Senior Tour Pros? Most Popular Driver on Champions Tour

Driving Success – The Most Popular Driver On LPGA Tour

Or if you’re more interested in how much the the equipment the best players in the world use explains the huge distances they hit the ball both off the tee read our next article to find out the key reasons why the pros hit the ball as far as they do, including how much of a role their clubs play, and how you can potentially add 20 to 30 yards to your drives!

How Do Pros Hit the Ball So Far?

[Note – Just so you know, and we are upfront as an affiliate program participant, Golfing Focus, at no cost to you, earns from qualifying purchases made through links on this page.]

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