When you watched pro golfers on TV in days gone by the golf shafts they used all looked the same.
In the modern game however the story is very different.
Not only will you see different players using different shafts from all kinds of different manufacturers but also different shafts in different club types and even coming in all sorts of colours.
So to see what golf shafts some of the best players in the world are using we analysed in-depth the ones being played by the top 100 pros on the PGA Tour.
True Temper golf shafts are the most used among the top 100 pros on the PGA Tour making up 52% of the total shafts played across all club types in 2023. Fujikura shafts are the next most popular in this elite group with 11% of clubs having those shafts with Mitsubishi shafts the next most common with a 10% share.
Those statistics only tell part of the story however and our detailed research also highlighted key differences in the preferred shafts of the pros within different club types.
We found for example different shaft manufacturers being more popular in different types of clubs such as drivers, fairway woods and hybrids with True Temper’s dominance only starting to show when it came to looking at what iron shafts the top pros use.
We therefore discovered virtually all the top 100 pros using different manufacturers’ shafts in different club types thereby clearly illustrating how precise the world’s best players are when it comes to choosing which golf shaft they use for different clubs.
The Best Golf Shaft on the PGA Tour Depends on Club Type
Take just a quick glance at the golf shafts used by the top 100 PGA Tour pros across all of their clubs and the detail with which they go when it comes to shaft choice becomes immediately obvious.
Many players will have at least 3 or even 4 different shaft manufacturers represented in their golf bag and while there are those that stick to one or two shaft brands you can be assured that the flex and weight of different shafts they use varies across different clubs.
To answer the question of what shafts the pros use is therefore a much more complicated one than it first seems as all the best pros will carry a variety within their golf bag.
We happily took on the challenge though having first done the research a couple of years back and once again analysed in detail the golf shafts used in every club played by the top 100 players on the PGA Tour in 2023.
And here is a breakdown of the % number of shafts from different manufacturers played with by the top 100 PGA Tour golfers across the different club types.
| GOLF SHAFT MANUFACTURER | DRIVER | WOODS | HYBRIDS | IRONS | WEDGES |
| Accra | 3% | 1% | – | – | – |
| Aldila | 5% | 5% | 6% | – | – |
| Fujikura | 35% | 27% | 18% | – | – |
| Graphite Design | 14% | 14% | 18% | – | – |
| KBS | – | – | 6% | 11% | 12% |
| LA Golf | – | 1% | – | – | – |
| Matrix | – | – | 3% | – | – |
| Mitsubishi | 25% | 30% | 21% | 1% | 0.3% |
| Miyazaki | – | 1% | – | – | – |
| Nippon | – | – | – | 13% | 9% |
| Oban | – | – | 3% | – | – |
| PING | – | – | 3% | 1% | 0.3% |
| TPT | – | 1% | – | – | – |
| True Temper | 14% | 13% | 15% | 74% | 75% |
| UST Mamiya | 3% | 5% | – | – |
From these numbers we can clearly see what the best pros on Tour consider to be the best golf shafts varies by club type.
Fujikura driver shafts are the most used by the top 100 PGA Tour pros with 35 playing them including Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler. The Ventus Black 6X is the most popular driver shaft with 7 pros choosing it. Ventus shafts are also the most common driver shaft model used by 17 followed by Mitsubishi’s Diamana shafts.
Despite the huge variety of golf shafts that are available in the modern game, when it comes to irons and wedges the top 100 PGA Tour pros obviously have a much clearer preference for True Temper shafts than the other brands.
When it comes to drivers, fairway woods, hybrids and utility irons by comparison however there is a lot more variance in the makes and models of golf shafts being used.
Players such as 2023 US Open champion Wyndham Clark for example are one of a select minority using Accra shafts in their driver while Jon Rahm joined the niche Aldila driver shaft user group selecting the Tour Green ATX 75 2.8 TX model in his driver to triumph at the Masters.
Other niche shaft selections from manufacturers such as Miyazaki, Oban, TPT and UST Mamiya were also found to be more prominent amongst the driver, fairway wood and hybrid shafts used by the top 100 while KBS and Nippon shafts found favour only when it came to the irons and wedges used by the players.
And now that we have the overview of the golf shafts used by the top 100 PGA Tour pros let’s take a look in more detail at the individual shafts used in the different club types.
Most Popular Driver Shaft on PGA Tour. Fujikura Extends Its Lead!
When looking at the driver shafts used by the best golfers on the PGA Tour the attention to detail that they clearly pay when putting together their clubs is clearly in evidence.
We found 72 different individual driver shafts being used by the top 100 PGA Tour players made by eight different manufacturers.
Fujikura driver shafts are the most used by the top 100 PGA Tour pros with 35 using them including Jordan Speith, Rory McIlroy, and Scottie Scheffler. The Ventus Black 6X is the most popular individual driver shaft with 7 pros choosing it. Ventus shafts are also the most common driver shaft model used by 17 pros followed by Mitsubishi’s Diamana range.
Even with Fujikura driver shafts being out in front – and increasing their share of the driver shafts used by the top 100 from 28 in 2021 to 35 in 2023 – the spread of driver shafts across the different manufacturers is much more evident than in any other club type.
Here is a breakdown of the most popular driver shafts produced by the different manufacturers among the top 100 PGA Tour pros.
| BRAND OF DRIVER SHAFT | NO. OF TOP 100 PGA TOUR PROS USING BRAND | MOST USED DRIVER SHAFT |
| Accra | 3 (inc. Wyndham Clark, Seamus Power) | Accra TZ5 85 M5 Check eBay |
| Aldila | 5 (inc. Jon Rahm, Kevin Streelman) | Aldila Rogue White 130 MSI 60 TX Check eBay |
| Fujikura | 35 (inc. Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Sam Burns, Jordan Speith, Billy Horschel, Vicktor Hovland, Will Zalatoris, Kevin Kisner, Keegan Bradley, Justin Rose) | Fujikura Ventus Black 6X Check eBay |
| Graphite Design | 14 (inc. Hideki Matsuyama, Brian Harman Sungjae Im, Adam Scott, KH Lee, Mackenzie Hughes, Russell Knox, Alex Smalley) | Graphite Design Tour AD DI 7 X Check eBay |
| Mitsubishi | 25 (inc. Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schauffele, Matt Fitzpatrick, Justin Thomas, Cameron Young, Tony Finau, Max Homa, Collin Morikawa, Shane Lowry, Tommy Fleetwood, Tyrrell Hatton) | Diamana D+ 70 TX Check eBay |
| True Temper | 14 (inc. Davis Riley, Sahith Theegala, Keith Mitchell, Russell Henley, Lucas Herbert, Andrew Putnam, Taylor Pendrith) | Project X HZRDUS Gen 4 Black Check eBay |
| UST Mamiya | 3 (inc. Scott Stallings, Corey Conners) | LIN-Q M40X White 6F5 |
Any talk of driver shafts also can’t come without a discussion on what flex they are and when it comes to that topic the preferences of the best players on the PGA Tour are very obvious.
While different manufacturers categorize the flex of their shafts differently we did not find any of the top 100 PGA Tour players using anything other than a stiff flex shaft or stronger in their driver.
Almost all of the top 100 PGA Tour pros play an extra stiff or Tour extra stiff driver shaft. 54 choose an extra stiff driver shaft including Viktor Hovland and Adam Scott while 44 use a Tour extra stiff shaft. Only 2023 Open Champion Brian Harman uses a stiff shaft and none of this group uses a regular flex driver shaft.
And the simple reason for this is swing speed.
The massive distances the best players on Tour are hitting the ball is significantly due to the swing speeds they are generating and with driver swing speeds well in excess of 100+ mph being recorded by the majority of the top pros this requires a very stiff driver flex to deliver the best results.
[Editor’s note – to find out what flex of shafts the top PGA Tour pros use across all club types you can check out our great post on that topic here while for some detailed analysis on the drivers used by the top 100 Tour pros you can find that here.]
Fairway Wood & Hybrid Shafts Used by Top 100 PGA Tour Pros
The detail that PGA Tour players go into when it comes to choosing the golf shafts for their clubs is again highlighted in the fairway wood and hybrid shafts they use.
Among the top 100 PGA Tour pros Mitsubishi and Fujikura shafts are the most used in woods and hybrids. The Diamana D+ Limited Edition 80 TX is the most used 3-wood shaft and it is also the most common 5-wood shaft alongside Fujikura’s Ventus Black 9X. Graphite Design’s Tour AD series are the most popular 7-wood shafts.
Many PGA Tour pros use a hybrid of course in preference to – and you can see what hybrids the top 100 on Tour are using here – higher number fairway woods or utility irons.
For the pros that do however we once again found a large variety of golf shafts being used.
We discovered 29 different hybrid shaft models being used by the top 100 PGA Tour players with Mitsubishi being the most popular hybrid shaft manufacturer and 7 pros using them.
The most used individual hybrid golf shaft among this group was the Graphite Design Tour AD DI Hybrid 95 X with 3 players each choosing it, including JT Potson and Sahith Theegala.
[Editor’s note – for a detailed analysis of what fairway woods the best 100 players on the PGA Tour are using you can check out our in depth look at this topic here.]
What Iron Shafts Do the Pros Use? True Temper Dominate the Field!
Compared to the variety of shafts the best pros choose in their drivers, fairway woods and hybrids, when it comes to the shafts the top 100 PGA Tour pros use in their irons there is much more of a consensus.
75 out of the top 100 PGA Tour pros use True Temper shafts in their irons. The Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100 iron shaft is the most popular with 32% choosing it while the Project X 6.5 shaft is used by 19 of this group in their irons. Nippon’s NS Pro Modus3 Tour 130 X shaft is the next most common with 5 players using them.
Although there appears to be much more consistency when it comes to the brand of iron shaft the best pros on the PGA Tour are choosing there is still clear evidence of the detail with which they approach the decision of which shafts to put in their irons.
We counted 28 different iron shafts across 5 different manufacturers being used and indeed despite the large numbers of pros choosing to play True Temper iron shafts there are still 15 different True Temper iron shaft models being played with by the top 100.
Indeed we found some players using two different models of shafts within their individual iron sets.
Russell Henley for example chooses True Temper’s Dynamic Gold AMT Tour White shaft for his Titleist T100 4 to 6-irons but goes with the Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400 shaft for his 7 to 9-irons.
Tony Finau meanwhile opts for Graphite Design’s Tour AD DI Hybrid 105 X shaft in his Nike Vapor Fly Pro 3-iron and interestingly Brooks Koepka also uses a different shaft in that same Nike 3-iron opting in his case for Fujikura’s Pro Tour Spec 95 X shaft.
While it is arguable whether the Vapor Fly Pro is a ‘driving/utility’ rather than ‘normal’ iron it was also interesting to note from our analysis that True Temper’s dominance when it comes to standard irons did not extent to utility irons.
Although True Temper shafts were once again the most used shaft in the utility irons used by the top 100 PGA Tour pros they only made up 38% of the shafts in that club type with Nippon shafts accounting for 31% of utility iron shafts.
As we saw with the longer clubs though once again we did not find any of the top 100 PGA Tour players using regular flex shafts in their irons with the vast majority – 88% – using either stiff plus, extra stiff or Tour extra stiff iron shafts.
2023 British Open Champion Brian Harman was one of the select minority we discovered to be using only stiff flex irons shafts with his choice of Dynamic Gold S300 shafts in his Titleist 620 CB irons.
Here is a complete breakdown of the iron golf shafts used currently by the top 100 golfers on the PGA Tour.
| IRON SHAFT | NO. OF TOP 100 PGA PLAYERS | |
| KBS C-Taper 125 S+ | 2 | Check eBay View on Amazon |
| KBS C-Taper 130 X | 1 | Check eBay |
| KBS S-Taper 130 X | 2 | Check eBay |
| KBS Tour 125 S+ | 1 | View on Amazon |
| KBS Tour 130 X | 1 | Check eBay View on Amazon |
| KBS Tour-V 120 X | 2 | Check eBay View on Amazon |
| KBS Tour-V 125 Tour Spec S+ | 2 | Check eBay |
| Mitsubishi MMT Taper Iron 105 TX | 1 | Check eBay View on Amazon |
| Nippon Shaft N.S. Pro Modus3 Tour120 TX | 3 | Check eBay View on Amazon |
| Nippon Shaft N.S. Pro Modus3 Tour120 X | 3 | Check eBay View on Amazon |
| Nippon Shaft N.S. Pro Modus3 Tour125 X | 2 | Check eBay View on Amazon |
| Nippon Shaft N.S. Pro Modus3 Tour130 X | 5 | Check eBay View on Amazon |
| PING CFS X | 1 | Check eBay |
| True Temper Aerotech SteelFiber Private Reserve i110 | 1 | Check eBay |
| True Temper AMT Tour White S300 | 1 | Check eBay View on Amazon |
| True Temper AMT Tour White S400 | 2 | Check eBay View on Amazon |
| True Temper AMT Tour White X100 | 2 | Check eBay View on Amazon |
| True Temper Dynamic Gold 120 Tour Issue X100 | 2 | Check eBay View on Amazon |
| True Temper Dynamic Gold Mid Tour Issue X100 | 2 | |
| True Temper Dynamic Gold S300 | 1 | View at PGA Tour Superstore Check eBay View on Amazon |
| True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400 | 4 | Check eBay View on Amazon |
| True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100 | 32 | Check eBay View on Amazon |
| True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100 Black Onyx | 2 | |
| True Temper Dynamic Gold X7 | 1 | Check eBay |
| True Temper Project X 6.0 | 4 | Check eBay View on Amazon |
| True Temper Project X 6.5 | 19 | Check eBay View on Amazon |
| True Temper Project X 7.0 | 1 | Check eBay View on Amazon |
| True Temper Project X LZ 6.5 | 1 | Check eBay View on Amazon |
[Editor’s note – check out the in-depth analysis we did on the irons being used by the top 100 PGA Tour pros here]
What Wedge Shafts Do the Pros Use? The S400 Leads the Way
Looking at the shafts used in the wedges of the best 100 PGA Tour pros there were again many interesting things of note.
While many of the pros kept the same shaft as they used for their irons, especially when it came to the pitching wedge, there was again a big variety of wedge shaft models being used.
True Temper’s Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400 is by far the most popular wedge shaft with almost 42% of all the wedges being used by the top 100 PGA Tour pros having it. The Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100 is the next most used wedge shaft and True Temper shafts account for 78% of the wedge shafts used by this elite group.
Although far behind KBS and Nippon Shafts are the next most common wedge shafts with 12% and 9% of the shafts used in the wedges by the top 100 PGA Tour players having them.
Their most used individual wedge shaft models are the KBS Hi-Rev 2.0 Wedge 135 X and the N.S. Pro Modus3 Tour130 X respectively.
What was also interesting to note was that while the shaft the top PGA Tour pros chose for their pitching wedge matched their iron shafts the vast majority of the time this trend was less well followed by the pros who chose a specialist pitching wedge in place of a pitching wedge that matched their iron set.
When it came to their gap, sand and lob wedges however the pros frequently started to change the shaft they had used in their irons in preference for less stiff flex models. We still however did not find one of the top 100 PGA Tour players using a regular flex wedge shaft.
We did though find little quirks among some of the pros when it came to their wedge shafts with CT Pan for example opting to have his True Temper Dynamic Gold S400 wedge shafts produced in custom purple to match the colours of his alma mater, the University of Washington!
You can also check out our analysis of the wedges being used by the top 100 PGA Tour pros here but to complete the wedge shaft picture here is a breakdown of the wedge golf shafts being used by this elite group.
| BRAND OF WEDGE SHAFT | NO. OF TOP 100 PGA TOUR PRO WEDGES USING SHAFT BRAND | MOST USED WEDGE SHAFT |
| KBS | 47 (out of 385 wedges) | KBS Hi-Rev 2.0 Wedge 135 X View on Amazon |
| Mitsubishi | 1 | MMT Taper Iron 105 TX Check eBay View on Amazon |
| Nippon Shaft | 35 | N.S. Pro Modus3 Tour130 X Check eBay View on Amazon |
| PING | 1 | CFS X Check eBay |
| True Temper | 301 | Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400 Check eBay View on Amazon |
[Note – Just so you know, and we are upfront as an affiliate program participant, Golfing Focus earns from qualifying purchases made through links on this page.]
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