Top 5 player-club combinations in professional golf

Professional golfers competing at the highest level for millions of dollars every week have the option to equip their bags with the latest technology.

However, in many cases, the latest technology isn’t what performs the best. Several of the most successful tour professionals have used the same club or clubs for decades, passing over many newer models, to stick with what works for their games.

Our staff compiled a list of our five favorite player-club combinations in professional golf.

In total, our top five player-club combos have won over 100 tournaments on the PGA Tour, European Tour, and PGA Tour Champions.

Here’s a look at our list: 

5. Bubba Watson — PING S55 Irons

Watson is most known for his expressive personality, unique swing, shot-shaping ability, and flashy pink drivers. While he may display a grip-it-and-rip-it approach on the course, he is actually very particular about his clubs. In the fall of 2012, Watson put the PING S55 irons into his bag (the model was made available to the public early in 2013) and quickly saw an uptick in his ball-striking. When at his best, the two-time Masters champion is a deadly iron player who’s willing to take on any flag. Watson has experimented with other PING players iron sets, such as iBlade and Blueprint, but has nevertheless leaned on the S55 irons for seven years and counting.

4. Steve Stricker — Odyssey White Hot 2 Putter

For the better part of the last 20 years, Stricker has been using the same putter — an Odyssey White Hot 2. And it has worked. The Wisconsin native has won 11 times on the PGA Tour since 2001, and he earned seven victories from 2009-2011. Since transitioning to the PGA Tour Champions in 2018, Stricker has added another five wins. Putting has been a strength throughout Stricker’s career, as his White Hot 2 putter has helped him rank highly in putting on the PGA Tour. He has finished in the top-12 on five different occasions in strokes gained putting, including third in 2011 and second in 2013.

3. Bryson DeChambeau — Cobra One Length Irons

When DeChambeau was 15 years old, he read Homer Kelly’s 1969 book The Golfing Machine. It was then that he was first introduced to a Zero Shift swing, a swing that utilizes a constant plane. DeChambeau quickly realized that the best way to achieve this swing with every club would be to cut his irons to the same length. When he burst onto the professional scene in 2016 after an incredible amateur career, Cobra signed DeChambeau to an endorsement deal and began working with him on One Length irons. The five-time PGA Tour winner is now the face of single-length irons and his unique physics-centric approach to the game has been mimicked by golfers of all ages and skill levels.

2. Henrik Stenson — Callaway Octane Diablo Tour 3-Wood

Stenson’s relationship with his Callaway Octane Diablo Tour 3-wood has recently ended, but the club’s value over the past eight years has not gone unnoticed. After falling to 207th in the world in 2011, Stenson made the switch to the Octane Diablo Tour 3-wood. He began to use it as his “fairway finder” and it became increasingly rare to see him hit a driver off the tee. This philosophy clearly paid off, as the Swede went on to win two FedEx Cup Playoff events in 2013 en route to winning the season-long FedEx Cup title. Then, in 2016, Stenson won The Open Championship in what will go down as one of the greatest displays of golf of all-time, and he also claimed the silver medal at the Olympics. The Octane Diablo Tour 3-wood and its Grafalloy Blue shaft (which was released in 2003) were a staple in Stenson’s bag until October 2019, when the face caved in after eight years of rigorous, but successful, use.

1. Tiger Woods — Titleist Scotty Cameron Newport 2 Putter

Woods is undoubtedly one of the greatest golfers the universe has ever seen, if not the greatest. While equipment has advanced drastically over the span of his legendary career, Woods has used the same putter for 14 of his 15 major championships: a custom Titleist Scotty Cameron Newport 2. The Newport 2 model has gone through several updates over the past couple of decades, but Woods has stuck with the same model Cameron constructed for him in 1999. And why shouldn’t he? He has dominated the sport for the better part of two decades using the Newport 2. Even as recently as October 2019, Woods won with his trusty Newport 2 at the Zozo Championship for his 82nd career PGA Tour win, tying him with Sam Snead for the most in PGA Tour history. Woods has experimented with a couple of other models over the past two decades, but he always finds himself falling back to the original Newport 2 that ignited his stellar career in 1999.