Which Golf Clubs Are Really Worthy of the Pros?

We examined the bags of the top 50 men and women tour professionals and found that 29 percent of the most elite golfers in the world use Titleist golf clubs, more than any other brand. PING is the next most-popular brand, gamed by a combined 18 percent of elite tour professionals. Here's the complete breakdown of which golf clubs the top 50 men and women players in the world use.

The top golfers in the world are highly sought after by equipment manufacturers. Marketing touring pros who have won majors and other events while using your clubs drives the equipment business more than anything else. From the player’s perspective, equipment contracts can be highly lucrative, especially if you’re a top 50 player. The absolute best players can use their world ranking as financial leverage when negotiating these contracts.

The best players in the world typically sign multi-year eqiupment agreements, with the financials being determined by a combination of their current status as well as a projection of where they’re headed. Players who are further down the world ranking typically sign shorter endorsement deals and occasionally go with year-to-year contracts.

Golf equipment contracts can be structured in numerous ways. Here are three of the most popular:

• Full bag agreement: A player agrees to play an entire bag of equipment from a single manufacturer.
• Full bag agreement with 1-2 exceptions: This type of agreement allows the player to use most of one manufacturer’s equipment, but can play one or two clubs from another. Players often use this exception to emply a putter and/or a driver, fairway wood, or hybrid of another company.
• Partial bag: A player can agree to play, for example, only irons from a manufacturer while playing woods and a putter from another.

Not all PGA and LPGA Tour professionals have equipment contracts. Depending on the opinion of each professional, equipment contracts might not be lucrative enough to sway the individual player from choosing which clubs make up their bag.

With all of this equipment talk, you might be wondering what the difference is between the clubs that amateurs use and the ones professionals use. Here’s a quick breakdown of what makes them different.
 

The average amateur golfer uses some sort of game improvement irons. This usually means larger heads on irons with more offset. Drivers, fairway woods, hybrids and wedges, are more likely to be the same models used by tour professionals, but without the exact dialed-in specs that a tour pro demands.

Another big difference is that amateur players are more likely to have a stock shaft in their clubs. These are shafts that are provided by the manufacturer as the main option at retail.

Golf clubs that are in a professional’s bag are typically looked over one-by-one to ensure that each club has a precise loft, lie, and length, and is free of any potential imperfections. All manufacturers have trailers on-site at professional events to ensure its sponsored players have everything they need to succeed.

Professional golfers usually play blade and muscle back irons with little to no offset, because their skill set doesn't require the additional forgiveness that amateurs need. Professionals also play lower spinning drivers and sometimes will have special one-off putters that are not available to the public.

Top Titleist Players

• Cameron Smith
• Patrick Cantlay
• Justin Thomas
• Jordan Spieth
• Will Zalatoris

Top PING Players

• Viktor Hovland
• Matt Fitzpatrick
• Tony Finau
• Joaquin Niemann

Top TaylorMade Players

• Scottie Scheffler
• Rory McIlroy
• Jon Rahm
• Collin Morikawa
• Dustin Johnson

Top Callaway Players

• Xander Schauffele
• Sam Burns
• Abraham Ancer
• Kevin Kisner

Top Srixon/Cleveland Players

• Hideki Matsuyama
• Brooks Koepka
• Shane Lowry

Top PXG Players

• Jason Kokrak
• Patrick Reed

Top Cobra Players

• Bryson DeChambeau

• Despite being a more boutique company, Bettinardi has two staff players in Matt Fitzpatrick and Jason Kokrak
• Hideki Matsuyama often mixes in clubs from TaylorMade, Wilson, and Cobra to go along with his Srixon contract
• Shane Lowry plays TaylorMade fairway woods and an Odyssey putter along with his Srixon contract
• Despite splitting with PXG, Patrick Reed continues to play some of its clubs along with irons from specialty manufacturer, grindworks USA

Top Titleist Players

• Jin Young Ko
• Nelly Korda
• Hyo-Joo Kim
• Jessica Korda
• Min Ji Park

Top Callaway Players

• Jin Young Ko
• Atthaya Thitikul
• Mone Inami
• Yula Saso
• Georgia Hall

Top PING Players

• Jin Young Ko
• Brooke Henderson
• Jennifer Kupcho
• In-Gee Chun

Top PXG Players

• Lydia Ko
• Celine Boutier
• Mina Harigae

Top Srixon/Cleveland/XXIO Players

• Minjee Lee
• Nasa Hataoka
• In Bee Park
• Hannah Green

Top TaylorMade Players

• Charley Hull
• He Jeong Lim

Top Mizuno Players

• Sei-Young Kim
• Mao Saigo

• Jun Young Ko, despite being the top ranked player, does not have an equipment contract. She uses clubs from Titleist, Callaway, Bridgestone, and PING
• Cobra’s only sponsored player in the top 50 is Lexi Thompson
• Lydia Ko parted ways with PXG but still uses numerous clubs from the manufacturer
• In Bee Park uses a mix of Srixon, Cleveland, and XXIO clubs which are all under the same ownership of Dunlop

It should come as no surprise that the top 50 players on both the men’s and women’s side of golf are playing brands that are very familiar. Titleist, PING, Callaway, TaylorMade, and others are well-represented. What might be surprising is that professional players take advantage of having a bag setup that suits their games while also abiding by their equipment contracts. As time goes on, will equipment contracts become less common? As long as manufacturers continue making clubs worthy of the pros, there will be plenty of room for negotiation.