In spite of the fact that pros seem to play a very different game to regular amateurs it is almost impossible for us not to pay close attention to the clubs the best golfers in the world are using.
There is a small part of every amateur golfer I suspect that believes that if we simply play the same club that the pros are using then some of their magic will transfer to us and we will be able to hit some of the same shots as they do.
But what clubs do the pros actually use?
If you analysed all the golf bags of the best players on the PGA Tour and chose the most popular 14 clubs the pros carry what golf set would you end up with?
We decided to do a comprehensive analysis of the top 100 players on the PGA Tour to find out.
The most popular 14 clubs the top 100 PGA Tour pros use starts with driver, 3-wood and 5-wood with 33 choosing these woods. The most common iron set, used by 42% begins with a 4-iron to a pitching wedge that matches the iron set. 3 specialist wedges – a 50º gap, 56º sand, and 60º lob wedge are finally added to the putter.
The best players in the world however clearly don’t all use this setup and many use a number of different variations of higher numbers fairway woods such as a 7-wood, utility irons, and hybrids.
Others, particularly the younger generation, prefer to carry 4 specialist wedges including a specialist pitching wedge instead of a pitching wedge that matches their iron set.
And indeed some of the players will change the make up of their set on a regular basis depending on the particular course they are playing that week.
It is interesting however that the most common set-up of the best players on Tour will feel familiar to millions of amateurs across the world despite all of the options that are available to pros today.
But while the most common golf club set up for the top pros is one thing we wanted also to find out what the best golfers on the PGA Tour considered to be the best individual golf clubs, including lofts, shafts, grips.
And not only that we also wanted to see what had changed since the last time we carried out this analysis two years ago!
Most Popular Golf Clubs on the PGA Tour – Top 100 Player Breakdown
When it comes to pro golf clubs and the most common set of clubs used by the top 100 players on the PGA Tour there is clearly a lot of similarity to the club type choices made by regular amateurs.
Having a set of clubs with 3 woods, 7 irons, 3 wedges, and a putter will be a familiar thing for the vast majority of amateur players.
But when it comes to the individual club choices of this elite group on the PGA Tour it is interesting to note what they consider to be the best clubs among the most common set up.
Titleist’s TSR3 driver is the most used by the top 100 PGA Tour pros with TaylorMade’s Stealth Plus the most popular 3-wood and 5-wood. Titleist’s T100 irons are the most played with 20 playing them while Titleist’s Vokey Design SM9 is the most used gap, sand, and lob wedge. TaylorMade’s Spider X is the most popular putter.
For those interested in the detail of the most used individual clubs among the top PGA Tour pros choosing the most common club setup, including lofts, shafts, and grips we have included all this in the table below.
| CLUB | MOST POPULAR CLUB MODEL / LOFT / SHAFT USED BY TOP 100 PGA TOUR PROS | |
| Driver | Titleist TSR3 (9°) Fujikura Ventus Black 6X shaft | Check eBay View at PGA Tour Superstore |
| 3-wood | TaylorMade Stealth Plus (15°) Graphite Design Tour AD DI 8X shaft | Check eBay View at PGA Tour Superstore |
| 5-wood | TaylorMade Stealth Plus (18°) Fujikura Ventus Black 9X shaft | Check eBay View at PGA Tour Superstore |
| Irons (4-iron to PW) | Titleist T100 True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100 shafts | Check eBay View at PGA Tour Superstore |
| Gap wedge | Titleist Vokey Design SM9 (50°) True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400 shaft | View at PGA Superstore Check eBay |
| Sand wedge | Titleist Vokey Design SM9 (56°) True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400 shaft | View at PGA Superstore Check eBay |
| Lob wedge | Titleist Vokey Design SM9 (60°) True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400 shaft | View at PGA Superstore Check eBay |
| Putter | TaylorMade Spider X | Check eBay View on Amazon View at PGA Tour Superstore |
| Putter grip | Scotty Cameron Dancing Cameron | Check eBay |
| Club grips | Golf Pride Tour Velvet | View at PGA Tour Superstore Check eBay View on Amazon |
| Golf ball | Titleist Pro V1 | Check eBay View at PGA Tour Superstore View on Amazon |
If you went to your local golf shop and picked up this set up of clubs you are clearly not automatically going to play like a top PGA Tour pro.
But for all the club choice options that are available to the best players in the world it is interesting to see how close this set probably is to the majority of amateurs across the world.
Further when we last did this research a couple of years ago this same set up was found to the be most common among the top 100 pros.
Saying that however our analysis also found that the top pros are all constantly searching for little changes and tweaks in their golf set which will save them a stroke or three across the course of a round or a tournament.
Many pros will therefore change one or two of their clubs from week to week depending on the type of course they find themselves playing, whether that be adding in an extra wedge at the expense of a fairway wood or utility iron, or adding in a hybrid in place of their longest iron.
Take a close look at Hideki Matsuyama’s bag on the driving range at a PGA Tour event for example and you will likely see 17 or even 18 clubs in his bag.
And this means you will sometimes find him swapping in a 20º Srixon ZX Mk II utility iron in place of his Cobra King RadSpeed Tour 5-wood when the course set up demands it.
This variation among the longer clubs in the bag is most common for many of the pros who do follow the ‘standard’ set up listed above.
For every pro that uses a 5-wood you will find close to a similar number who choose a higher numbered 7-wood, utility iron or hybrid in its place.
Further a number of the pros opt to carry more than one utility iron or hybrid and then start their standard iron-set with a 5-iron or sometimes even a 6-iron.
The decision to play 4 specialist wedges instead of the standard 3 by replacing the pitching wedge which comes with the rest of the iron set is also increasing in popularity particularly among the younger generation of pros on the PGA Tour.
So for the sake of completeness in the table below we list the most popular clubs among the alternative clubs which we found used by some of the top 100 PGA Tour pros.
| CLUB | MOST POPULAR CLUB MODEL / LOFT / SHAFT USED BY TOP 100 PGA TOUR PROS | |
| 4-wood | TaylorMade Stealth 2 Plus (16.5°) Graphite Design Tour AD DI 9X shaft | Check eBay View at PGA Superstore |
| 7-wood | PING G425 Max (21°) Graphite Design Tour AD DI 8X shaft | View at PGA Superstore Check eBay |
| Hybrid | Callaway Apex UW (19º) Graphite Design Tour AD DI Hybrid 95 X shaft | Check eBay View at PGA Superstore |
| Utility / Driving Iron | Srixon ZX Utility Nippon N.S. Pro Modus3 Tour120 X shaft | View at PGA Superstore Check eBay View on Amazon |
| Specialist Pitching Wedge | Titleist Vokey Design SM9 (46°) True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100 shaft | View at PGA Superstore Check eBay |
[Editor’s note – to put together this analysis we researched all the drivers, fairway woods, utility or driving irons, irons, irons, wedges, and putters used by the top 100 players on the PGA Tour. If you are interested in finding out more about the individual club types you can check out our other articles here:
- What Driver is Most Used On the PGA Tour? Top 100 Player Analysis
- The Fairway Woods Used by the Top 100 PGA Tour Pros
- What Hybrid Golf Clubs Do the Top 100 PGA Tour Pros Use?
- What Driving Irons Do the Pros Use on the PGA Tour?
- What Irons Do the Pros Use? Top 100 PGA Tour Player Guide
- What Wedges Do the Pros Use? Top 100 PGA Tour Player Analysis
- What Putters Do the Pros Use? Top 100 PGA Tour Player Guide]
What Brand of Golf Clubs Do the Pros Use? Titleist Remains Dominant
When it comes to golf club brands they are an ever-increasing number of options on the market today.
As golf technology has developed at a rapid rate, and particularly since the turn of the century, an increasing number of specialist brands have entered the market and sometimes specialized in areas of the game, such as putter grips, previously considered not thought of as worthy of dedicated attention.
The big golf brands however have maintained an almost vice-like grip over the golf market and when it comes to the professional ranks, and what they consider to be the best golf clubs, that grip is once again in evidence.
Titleist is the dominant brand among the clubs used by the top 100 PGA Tour pros. Their clubs are the most used across almost all categories of clubs – drivers, utility irons, irons, hybrids and wedges. And in the hybrid and putter categories they are the 2nd most popular. Callaway and PING are the next most popular brands.
For many years everyone has been aware of Titleist’s stranglehold over the golf ball market but I must confess to being slightly surprised of the popularity of Titleist clubs among all club types used by the best pros on the PGA Tour.
Titleist produces the most used golf clubs across all the main categories of golf clubs with the exception of fairway woods and putters.
But even in these categories Titleist is the second most popular brand with only 1 fewer player using its Scotty Cameron branded putters compared to Callaway’s Odyssey models.
Titleist’s dominance is evident however in every other club category and especially when it comes to wedges where their Vokey Design clubs are chosen 3 times as frequently compared to the next most popular wedge brands of PING and Cleveland.
The table below highlights the most used brands among the top 100 PGA Tour pros and as you can see Titleist’s dominance is very clear, as it was when we looked at the club brands being used by this elite group a couple of years ago.
We did though note two key points which have changed since then.
Firstly Srixon has become a more popular brand among the PGA Tour pros in that time, overtaking TaylorMade in terms of popularity and getting very close to the popularity levels of Callaway and PING when we take into account all the club categories.
And secondly PXG has fallen away by comparison with now none of the top 100 pros we looked at using any of their drivers, fairway woods, utility irons or irons compared to a few who were using them two years ago.
Before you go …
Knowing what clubs the top PGA Tour pros are using is always interesting but with the swingspeeds of the average male pro typically being over 20mph faster than the average amateur golfer (114mph vs. 93.4mph) there is possibly more to learn from the clubs being played by the best female pros.
Read our next article to find out what clubs the best LPGA pros are choosing with their 94mph average swingspeeds …
What Clubs do LPGA Players Use?
Other great articles related to this topic:
- What Driver is Most Used On the PGA Tour? Top 100 Player Analysis
- The Fairway Woods Used by the Top 100 PGA Tour Pros
- What Hybrid Golf Clubs Do the Top 100 PGA Tour Pros Use?
- What Driving Irons do the Pros Use on the PGA Tour?
- What Irons Do the Pros Use? Top 100 PGA Tour Player Guide
- What Wedges Do the Pros Use? Top 100 PGA Tour Player Analysis
- What Putters do the Pros Use? Top 100 PGA Tour Player Guide
- What Golf Balls Do the Pros Use? Top 100 PGA Tour Players Breakdown
- What Golf Grips Do the Pros Use? Top 100 PGA Tour Player Guide
- What Shafts Do Pros Use? Top 100 PGA Tour Player Breakdown
- Do Pros Use Regular or Stiff Shafts? They’re Stronger Than That!
- Do Pros Use Graphite or Steel Shafts? It Depends Which Club
- Do Golf Pros Wear Metal Spikes? But They are Banned!
- Most Popular Driver on LPGA Tour? Top 50 Player Guide
- What Irons Do LPGA Players Use? Top 50 Pros Analysis
- What Golf Balls Do LPGA Players Use? Top 50 Player Breakdown
- How Do Pros Hit the Ball So Far? It’s Not About the Equipment!