During most weeks, GolfWRX.com reports live from the practice rounds of PGA Tour events, but occasionally we check out the Korn Ferry Tour, LPGA Tour, and PGA Tour Champions as well. To be honest, I personally think most amateurs can learn way more from the equipment setups on the LPGA and Champions Tour, but that’s another story for another day. I’ll save the gear lessons and get right to the seriously cool, custom, and throwback equipment that I spotted recently at Phoenix Country Club for the 2022 Charles Schwab Cup Championship.
Below are my 7 equipment takeaways from going inside the ropes at the Champions Tour season finale.
More photos from the Charles Schwab Cup Championship
1) Miguel Angel’s fairway wood faces are DIMED out
Miguel Angel Jimenez uses three different Ping G425 Max fairway woods (14.5, 17.5 and 20.5 degrees), and each of them have similar wear marks directly in the center of the face – aside from the 7 wood, which has a slight skymark near the crown.
We also got a close look at the type of cigar that Jimenez smokes, if you’re into that kind of thing. It’s a Chateau de la Fuente Opus X Rare Estate Reserve from 1992, for those curious.
Miguel Angel Jimenez 2022 WITB (Charles Schwab Cup)
2) Stickers are a viable way to customize your clubs
Rocco Mediate customizes his Ping G400 driver using stickers, while his Artisan wedges are stamped the old-fashioned way.
See more of Rocco’s bag setup here
3) 50 Cent’s new favorite Champions Tour golfer?
Y.E. Yang’s custom “Yangsta” Vokey wedge deserves a remix of rapper 50 Cent’s popular “What Up, Gangsta?” song.
What up, Yangsta?
And, as always, his bag is so packed with hybrids that his longest iron the bag is a 7-iron!
More photos of Y.E. Yang’s bag, and more
4) K.J. Choi bag update
It’s always fun to see what clubs K.J. Choi is using, because he seems to switch it up so often. Most recently, he was using Srixon’s brand new ZX7 MKII irons, with a small strip of lead tape on the back cavity.
More photos of K.J. Choi’s bag
5) A TaylorMade xFT ZTP wedge spotted in the wild
When I was heading toward Padraig Harrington’s bag to see what irons and wedges he was playing these days, I was NOT expecting to see an old TaylorMade XFT ZTP 58-degree wedge from 2010. I can’t help but get nostalgic seeing old clubs like this still being used by professionals.
Check out more photos of Padraig’s setup here
6) Goosen’s putter
Retief Goosen’s gamer putter used to be an Odyssey O-Works 2-ball. I’m not sure you can consider it a 2-ball putter anymore, since the crown is completely blacked out with a single white alignment line. Now it’s just the Odyssey O-Works “Goose Proto,” as I like to call it.
7) Bernhard’s tools
Bernhard Langer doesn’t use iron “sets,” per se, because he mostly crafts his bag setup by selecting individual clubs that are tasked with specific jobs and yardages to hit. As such, most of his irons are custom built exactly to his preferences. He uses Adams Idea Pro hybrids, Tour Edge Exotics CBX Forged long irons, Artisan Golf 8-9 irons, and a custom Tour Edge Exotics BL Proto pitching wedge. It’s seriously fascinating to analyze his clubs.
If you want to know more about his process and his work with master craftsman Mike Taylor at Artisan Golf, check out this story I wrote a few years back for pgatour.com.
He also uses an Odyssey White Hot 2-ball, with a heaping of lead tape on the sole and a permanent markered thick black line on the crown. As for his grip on the longer putter, he uses two split Golf Pride Tour Velvet grips.
Incredible.
