The PGA TOUR’s 2022-23 FedExCup season began and ended the same way – with a champion retrieving his Titleist from the bottom of the cup.
It started last September at the Fortinet Championship, when Max Homa’s Pro V1 travelled 33 feet, from a tight, short-sided lie beneath the 18th green, spinning into the hole on Silverado Resort & Spa’s closing par-5 for what proved to be a walk-off birdie.
And it came to a close last Sunday, with Viktor Hovland setting up over a 7-foot putt on East Lake’s par-5 18th, his Pro V1 golf ball marked with a long, black line that he’d directed toward the cup. End over end, Hovland’s Pro V1 dropped in for birdie and a five-shot triumph, officially earning him two new titles: TOUR Champion and FedExCup Champion.
From Max’s magic act to Viktor’s victory lap, there were a total of 47 PGA TOUR events – with more players and more champions putting their trust in Titleist golf balls and equipment than any other brand:
– Seventy-two percent of players who played in a PGA TOUR event during the 2022-23 FedExCup season teed up a Pro V1 or Pro V1x golf ball, the longstanding and overwhelming choice of the world’s best.
And when the world’s best descended on The Los Angeles Country Club this summer, Titleist became the #1 ball at the U.S. Open for the 75th consecutive year, continuing golf’s longest running equipment success story. The winner, Wyndham Clark, played a Pro V1x.
– For the fifth consecutive season, following the inception of the Titleist Speed Project, more players on the PGA TOUR are using a Titleist driver (32%) than any other brand – including five of the top 10 and nine of the top 17 players in the OWGR. Five of the last seven major champions have gamed a Titleist driver.
– Titleist is the longstanding most played iron on the PGA TOUR for 19 of the last 20 seasons, including the last nine in a row, with more players trusting Titleist T100 models than any other. The TOUR’s most popular hybrids and utility irons are also Titleist.
– Week in and week out, there are more Vokey Design wedges in play on TOUR than all other brands combined. Seven of the top 10 players in the world use at least one Vokey wedge.
– More champions throughout the PGA TOUR season used Titleist golf balls (28), drivers (14), irons (12) and Vokey wedges (24) than any other brand.
– At three events during the ‘22-’23 FedExCup schedule (Butterfield Bermuda Championship, Sentry Tournament of Champions, American Express), Titleist topped every major equipment count as the #1 ball and most played driver, fairway, hybrid, utility, iron, wedge and putter. The Amex marked the 30th time since the start of the 2019 calendar year that Titleist has swept the counts. Titleist remains the only brand to ever accomplish this feat on the PGA TOUR.
THE #1 BALL IN GOLF | INSIDE THE NUMBERS
The world’s best teed up the #1 ball in golf a combined 4,444 times (72%) during the FedExCup season, more than seven times the nearest competitor (627), with Titleist golf ball players accounting for 28 victories (58%):
- World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler registered one of the TOUR’S historic ballstriking seasons with his Pro V1 golf ball, leading statistics week after week while collecting 17 top-10 finishes and two wins in 23 appearances – including a record-setting victory at THE PLAYERS.
- The world No. 1 finished his season averaging 2.62 Strokes Gained: Tee to Green per round, the second-best average in the 20-year shotlink era.
- He was the first PLAYERS Champion to shoot all four rounds in the 60’s (68-69-65-69), while gaining more strokes on the field tee to green (+17.17) than any other PLAYERS Champion in the shotlink era. He posted 17 under for the week and won his sixth career PGA TOUR title by five shots.
- Scheffler led the TOUR in Greens in Regulation, averaging 74.43% (the highest percentage since 2001) and winning the GIR title for a second consecutive year.
- He made bogey or worse on just 10.73% of his holes played this season, the first player to average below 11% since 2002.
- His adjusted scoring average of 68.63 for the season is the 7th-best of all time. His total of 17 top-10 finishes is the highest of any player since 2005.
- Scheffler is also on pace to become the first player to lead the TOUR in both Stokes Gained: Off the Tee and Strokes Gained: Approach.
Scheffler on the performance of his Pro V1: “I feel like you're always playing a different type of shot. Rarely am I just hitting a straight up stock shot, you're always trying to do a little something with the golf ball. And so having that consistency and knowing that golf ball's going to react the way I need it to react when it comes off the face and when it goes into the green - especially when you get in a Tour setup where the greens are crazy firm, the wind is blowing - you got to have total control over where that golf ball is going to go. I feel like I've gotten that consistency with the Titleist ball over the years and I really trust how it reacts.”
Titleist golf ball players also topped the following categories through the TOUR Championship:
- Sub-par rounds (69): Wyndham Clark (Pro V1x), Stephan Jaeger (Pro V1)
- Total Birdies (438): Eric Cole (Pro V1x)
- Total Eagle (18): Kevin Tway (Pro V1)
- Par-3 Scoring Avg. (2.94): Max Homa (Pro V1)
- Par-4 Scoring Avg. (3.91): Scottie Scheffler (Pro V1)
- Par-5 Scoring Avg. (4.44): Patrick Cantlay (Pro V1x)
- Total Hole-Outs (25): Ben An (Pro V1x), Ben Griffin (Pro V1)
- Scrambling (67.74%): Brian Harman (Pro V1)
- Proximity to Hole Around the Green (6’7”): Tony Finau (Pro V1 Left Dot), Ben An (Pro V1x)
- In winning the 123rd US Open, Wyndham Clark was in total control of his Pro V1x golf ball, gaining strokes on the field off the tee (+5.76), approaching the green (+1.06) and around the greens (+3.9) at LACC. “Honestly, one of the most important things in a player’s bag is the golf ball,” Clark said. “If you don’t have control of that, then it doesn’t matter how you’re swinging, how the clubs are made, whatever. The golf ball is so important, and that’s ultimately what goes into the hole. Having faith and trusting your golf ball is huge.”
- Gaming his Pro V1 golf ball, Brian Harman joined Clark in major history, winning the Claret Jug at Royal Liverpool in a runaway six-shot victory. Harman took control of the championship on Friday morning after shooting 65, a round that was more than eight shots better than the field average.
“The reason I switched back to Titleist was because of windy days and with Open Championships and major championships in mind,” said Harman, who made the move to his Pro V1 in 2017, switching from a competitive model after teaming up with Johnson Wagner at the Zurich Classic.
“I just was never able to flight my old ball. I had trouble controlling and especially in the wind and we ended up playing so much wind out here. The effects for me were immediate switching to this Pro V and I mean, it’s been a complete 180. The way that I flight iron shots, the way that I control it around the green, it saves me, I don't know how many shots it’s saved me.”
- Fellow Pro V1 player Viktor Hovland finished off his season in style, winning back-to-back weeks at the BMW Championship and TOUR Championship to capture the FedExCup.
On Sunday of the BMW Championship at Olympia Fields Country Club, Hovland vaulted to the top of the leaderboard after a Sunday 61. His 9-under closing round – which set the course record at Olympia Fields – featured a final-nine 28 that included five approach shots inside of 9 feet. He gained 3.48 strokes with his approach play on the back nine alone on his way to closing out the tournament and the lowest final round shot in FedExCup Playoff history.
The very next week, Hovland closed in similarly dominant fashion, winning the TOUR Championship by five after a bogey-free final round 63. The round was Hovland’s 11th-consecutive round in the 60’s and seventh round of 66 or better during the FedEx Cup Playoffs. Hovland also won The Memorial in June, making it a three-win season.
“First of all, it gives me a lot of consistency around the greens. I like how it feels off the face. I like how I’m able to spin the ball around the greens. But at the same time, I don’t sacrifice anything to the full shots. When I hit a drive on a par-5 and I’m trying to get after it, I don’t have to worry about the spin creeping up too high. I can still hit a high launch with low spin and then if I missed the green in two, I can still hit a short-sided shot with a lot of spin. So I think just the versatility is the key with the Pro V1 ball for me – and especially in the wind because we do play in a lot of wind. And I think that’s kind of the biggest challenge. If you don’t have a good ball in the wind, it really plays a big difference. The consistency in the wind, knowing how much it’s going to curve in certain wind directions and stuff like that – it just plays really well for me.”
- In January at the Farmers Insurance Open, Max Homa captured his second victory of the season after putting 2023 Pro V1 in play for the first time. Homa made the decision to move to the new model after visiting the Titleist Performance Institute and working through his bag with his coach Mark Blackburn and J.J. Van Wezenbeeck, Titleist’s Director of Player Promotions.
- “With ’23 Pro V1 we saw Max’s ball speed jump a little bit off the driver with lower spin,” Van Wezenbeeck said. “It was flying great. He was even more consistent with his irons and the short game performance was as good as ever. It was a no brainer.”
After the testing session, Homa took a box of NEW Pro V1’s out for a casual nine-hole round with his caddie Joe Greiner and friends at Rancho Santa Fe Country Club. “I wasn’t thinking much about the golf ball really, and then all of a sudden I got to [hole] 8 and I had like 230 way up a hill, front pin, and I hit this big high 4 iron and I stopped it real fast,” Homa told Jonathan Wall on GOLF’s Fully Equipped podcast. “And I looked at Joe and I was like, ‘OK.’ … I called J.J. and I said, ‘Hey I’m going to use the golf ball.’”
Over the four days at Torrey Pines, Homa put on a ballstriking clinic, leading the field in Strokes Gained: Tee to Green (+10.620) on his way to collecting his sixth PGA TOUR victory.
“Lo and behold, I hit two of the best 4-irons of my life on 11 and 16 on the final round...,” Homa said on the podcast. “But when I was done I was like, ‘Dang, that’s pretty cool to see that you could throw the golf ball in.’ I hit one on 11 where I threw it as high as I could with spin. And then on 16 I wanted one to be flat and get through the wind a little bit. I don’t know, that was great.”
THE TOUR'S MOST PLAYED DRIVER | THE POWER OF THE TITLEIST SPEED PROJECT
Following the breakthrough performance gains of the Titleist Speed Project and the introduction of the TS, TSi and now TSR driver models, Titleist has been the most played driver on the PGA TOUR for five straight seasons.
Thirty-two percent of all drivers in play during the 2022-23 FedExCup season were Titleist models, compared to 22% for the nearest competitor. Five of the last seven major championships have been won with a Titleist driver, including the 2023 U.S. Open (Wyndham Clark) and the 2023 Open Championship (Brian Harman). Five of the top 10 players in the OWGR play a Titleist driver, as well as nine of the top 17.
- To open the season, Max Homa captured the Fortinet Championship gaming his TSR3 10.0 driver, while Tom Kim won the Shriners Children’s Open with his TSR3 9.0 a few weeks later. The most popular driver model on the PGA TOUR is Titleist TSR3.
Said Homa: “Sounds like you’re smashing it, which is nice. I did notice that the spin didn’t change as much when you mishit it. The heel and toe strikes kept the spin a little closer to your good ones. That’s obviously something I think everybody would be happy to have. It’s a mile an hour faster for me, just ball speed. So it feels like a no brainer.”
Said Kim: “I had been playing the TSi3 for the longest time and I thought I wasn’t going to change it, but after trying it at TPI, it was just so good that I had to put it in the bag, and it’s been working out really well,” said Kim. “My percentage in the fairway has gone up and, yeah, it’s a keeper. Missed hits, solid hits, it just stays in the wind so well for me, that’s what I’ve had trouble with before and I thought I was going to use the ‘i’ for the rest of the season, but I put it right in the bag because I gained ball speed, gained swing speed, smash factor went up and holds it really well into the wind. So it was great.”
- Wyndham Clark gained over five shots on the field off the tee (+5.44, 2nd) with his TSi3 driver during his U.S. Open victory. Said Clark: “I use this driver because it’s so consistent. My misses are incredible and that’s big for me...When you miss with the Titleist it stays within the parameters that I need to play good golf. And that’s ultimately why I use Titleist clubs, especially this driver.”
- Brian Harman made it back-to-back major wins for Titleist drivers, gaming his TSi2 9.0 driver on his way to victory at Hoylake. Harman led the field in driving accuracy for the week, hitting 75% of his fairways over 72 holes and hitting 12/14 fairways on Sunday during the most pressure-packed 18 holes of his career. For the week, he gained over three shots on the field off the tee (+3.26).
“It’s been an awesome driver, man,” Harman said. “Put it right in the bag right when it came out and it’s hot, it’s fast, it’s high. I can do whatever I want with it. It’s great.”
- Lee Hodges earned his first career PGA TOUR event at the 3M Open, punctuated by four key shots – two a piece with his TSR2 8.0 driver, TSR3 15.0 fairway.
Hodges made two eagles on Sunday, both from 257 yards and both set up with his TSR2 driver off the tee and his TSR3 15.0 fairway into the green. On the par-5 6th, Hodges knocked his Pro V1 to 11 feet, while his approach on the par-5 12th settled to 2 feet, 8 inches from the cup.
“Anytime you hit two 3-woods inside 10 feet you're being pretty aggressive,” he told the media after the round. “Those were two of the greatest shots I ever hit...I had the exact same number both times and in the exact same wind. I just had to hold a little 3-wood. And it was 257 both times. I just had to get it up in the air and hold it and I did it pretty well.”
Hodges also games a TSR3 21.0 hybrid, with Titleist making up 41% of the hybrids played on TOUR, compared to 17% for the nearest competitor.
NEW T-SERIES IRONS | OFF AND RUNNING
Titleist has been the most played iron on the PGA TOUR for 19 of the last 20 seasons, including each of the last nine, while T100 continues to be the most played iron model on TOUR since the first generation debuted in 2019. The most played utility iron on TOUR is also Titleist, chosen 42% of the time (nearest competitor: 19%).
- The newest generation of Titleist T-Series irons – T100, T150, T200 and T350 – as well as the new T200 and U•505 utilities – launched on TOUR this summer at The Memorial, seeing instant Tour adoption and success.
Lee Hodges claimed the 3M Open with a mixed set that included new T100 4-6 irons. He gained more than nine shots on the field with his approach shots that week and hit 81% of his greens in regulation.
“They’re so great, same spin numbers, same carry distances and I was getting about 7 to 8 to 9 feet of height, so you’d be a fool not to play them.” Hodges told GolfWRX after his victory. “I put them in the bag that week (at Memorial)... If it’s better, you’re a fool not to use it.”
- Cameron Young was one of the first players to game new T-Series models in competition, adding new T100 4-5 irons to his blended set the first week they were available.
“I actually probably like the way that the T100s go through the ground better than, say, an MB, because I'm pretty steep and I take some big divots,” he said. “Just the shape of that sole and just the little extra width I think really helps me in the longer irons, helps me get it up in the air. Just helps me take the divots I want to... But [the T100 and MBs] look so similar. Especially when you hit one solid, they feel so much the same. I don't get to that part of the bag and say, well, I really want to hit 6 because it's the MB. It's almost the other way around sometimes.
- Cameron Smith (New T100 5-9 irons) and Tom Kim (New T200 3 iron, T100 4-9 irons) joined the growing list of players gaming new T-Series models, with both players adding new irons to the bag at LACC en route to high finishes (Smith: 4th, Kim: T8). “Just a lot cleaner through the ground for me, which is nice,” Smith said.
Said Kim, who gained more than seven strokes on the field at LACC on approach shots (: “The feel [of new T100] was just so much better than the ones I've used. And to be honest, I've gone through three sets of T100s, and every time I hit it at the new ones, I kind of question, ‘Man, can it get any better?’ And for some reason it does.”
Kim, on his T200’s: “The sound just completely changed, especially, not when you hit it good, but the mishits, the sound was really similar to the solid ones. The ball flight didn't change much, and obviously the ball flight of it, where the curve was and everything was really similar to my good shots."
- Also making a utility iron change at LACC was the 2023 FedExCup Champion, who added a new U•505 3 iron to the bag. He has played Titleist for his utility iron since the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, when he was seeking high-launching hybrid-like performance in an iron construction.
- Max Homa earned his sixth PGA TOUR win at the Farmers Insurance Open in January, hitting “two of the best four irons of his life” coming down the stretch to seal the victory.
- Homa, who games a T100•S 4 iron along with his T100 5 iron and 620 MB 6-9 irons, made birdie on the 213-yard par-3 11th hole after hitting his 4-iron approach to 12 feet. Just a few holes later, Homa stepped to the 16th tee trailing by one shot. Facing a 227-yard shot back into the wind, he again reached for his 4 iron and hit the closest approach of the day, his ball settling 15 feet from the cup.
- Similar to Homa’s setup, Davis Riley and his partner both won the Zurich Classic of New Orleans with blended iron sets. Riley: T100 4 iron, 620 CB 5-6 irons; 620 MB 7-9 irons; 2023 Zurich Classic Champion: T100 4 iron, 620 MB 5-P irons.
- Both of the final two major championships of the year were won with Titleist irons and utilities, as Wyndham Clark captured the U.S. Open at LACC while Brian Harman earned the title of Champion Golfer of the Year at Royal Liverpool.
- Wyndham Clark: T200 3 iron, 620 CB 4-9 irons | Mitsubishi Tensei AV Raw White 100HY X (3), True Temper Dynamic Gold X7 (4-9)
- Brian Harman: U•500 3-5 irons, 620 CB 6-P irons | Project X HZRDUS Smoke Black 90HY 6.0 3-5, True Temper Dynamic Gold S300 (6-P)
THE TOUR’S MOST TRUSTED WEDGES | TWENTY YEARS IN A ROW
The most played wedge on the PGA TOUR since 2004, Vokey Design wedges are in the bags of more players every week on TOUR (53%) than all other brands combined (47%). Vokey wedges were used to win 23 tournaments this ‘22-23 PGA TOUR season, including two majors: the U.S. Open and the Open Championship.
- Shortly after breaking through on the PGA TOUR and winning the Wells Fargo Championship, Wyndham Clark captured his first major title, winning the U.S. Open at LACC with four Vokey Design wedges in the bag: Vokey Design SM9 46.10F, 52.12F, 56.10S, WedgeWorks 60A. Clark leaned on his short game all week, gaining nearly four shots around the green (3.92/7th) and leading the field in proximity to the hole on shorts around the green (5’9”), more than four feet better than the field average (9’11”). Key up-and-downs from difficult positions on Nos. 11 and 17 were essential in holding off the field and winning by one.
– “I use the SM9s, these are incredible,” Clark said. “Vokey's done a great job in creating a wedge that launches at the launch you want, which is kind of a lower launch, but with a ton of spin. And that’s what all of us out here strive and try to get with our wedges is that lower launch that fights through the wind. But then when it lands, it is really receptive.”
- Brian Harman also joined Clark as a first-time major champion, winning at Royal Liverpool by six shots. Harman gamed three Vokey Design wedges (Vokey Design SM9 50.08F, 54.08M, 60.04L) en route to victory, getting up-and-down 75% of the time and gaining 1.44 shots around the greens at Hoylake.
- The 2023 PLAYERS Champion showed off his short game prowess at TPC Sawgrass on his way to winning by five, gaming his Vokey Design SM8 50.12F, 56.14F and SM9 WedgeWorks 60T wedges. He gained over five shots on the field around the green, holing out twice over the weekend, and got up-and-down 72% of the time. He has used three Vokey wedges in each of his six PGA TOUR titles, including the 2023 WM Phoenix Open.
- Max Homa won the season opener at the Fortinet Championship in dramatic fashion, holing out from 32 feet on the 72nd hole with his 60.04L lob wedge on his way to winning by one. Said Homa on the tournament-winning shot: “I mean, it was as short-sided as you could be, you couldn’t really stop it. I spin it and once it hit the pin, it almost like spun straight into the ground.”
- The champion of the 2023 RBC Heritage won with three Vokey wedges in the bag (SM9 52.12F, 56.08 and WedgeWorks 60T), gaining over three strokes on the field around the greens and getting up and down 83% of the time. Each player in the Top 4 had at least two Vokeys in the bag, with all four players using an SM9 WedgeWorks T Grind lob wedge.
- Similarly, every player in the final top 9 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational – including the then 2nd, 3rd and 4th-ranked players in the OWGR – had at least one Vokey in the bag, including the champion, who played an SM9 WedgeWorks 60.06K.
- The Vokey Design T Grind is the most popular lob wedge grind on TOUR, with at least 41 of the top 100 players in the OWGR as of the week of the TOUR Championship having played the T Grind this season.
- 7 of the top 10 and 14 of the top 20 players in the OWGR carry at least one Vokey wedge, including Jordan Spieth:
“I like to really hit my wedges with lower trajectory,” Spieth said after switching to his current SM9 models. “I feel like that I can control my distances a lot better when I do that, so the idea that when I’m hitting three-quarter shots with those clubs on those kind of not full yardages, maybe if you have to flight one in the wind or off an upslope, they seem to be really, really consistently coming off with that nice low ball flight.
“All the good stuff stayed the same and then I felt like I could get even a little more dialed in on some of those three-quarter approach shots that a lot of times we have to have into some tuck pins out here. Without jeopardizing any of the full shots or any of the workability that I’ve always liked with my wedges.”
SCOTTY CAMERON PUTTERS | THE CHOICE OF CHAMPIONS
The choice of many of the world’s best, including eight of the world’s top 20, Scotty Cameron putters continue to collect victories at the highest level of professional golf. The 2023 PGA Champion won his fifth-career major championship with a Scotty Cameron T22 Newport 2 tour prototype in the bag at Oak Hill. The winner of the 2023 WM Phoenix Open and PLAYERS Championship also gamed a Newport 2-style blade putter, winning his 2023 titles with a Scotty Cameron Special Select Timeless Tourtype GSS tour prototype putter. Max Homa (Scotty Cameron Phantom X 5.5 tour prototype), Tom Kim (Scotty Cameron TourType Timeless GSS tour prototype), Russell Henley (Scotty Cameron TourType Special Select Timeless GSS Long Neck tour prototype putter), Lee Hodges (Scotty Cameron GOLO 6 tour prototype) and Davis Riley (Scotty Cameron Phantom X 7.2 tour prototype) were also among the group of players who brought Scotty Cameron putters to the winner’s circle this season.
For Homa, it’s now five wins and counting with a Scotty Cameron Phantom X putter model in the bag. The run began at the 2021 Genesis Invitational, where Homa, gaming a Phantom X 11.5, became the first player to win with a Phantom X model putter on the PGA TOUR. Four months later, he switched to the Phantom X 5.5, which he used to win the last two Fortinet Championships as well as the Wells Fargo Championship last May.
Said Homa, on his switch to Phantom X: “I was just struggling with face control with my putter. So I tried a few mallets, ended up going with one of the Phantoms and it just felt like it swung a bit better. It didn’t feel like I needed to work so much with my hands to release the putter. And at that time that’s really what I needed and then I got hooked on them. …
“I think you almost don't have to do as much with your hands, so you can just focus on the big muscles. And I feel like, especially with putting, especially when you’re nervous, that’s a huge part of being consistent and having a lot of repetition. I felt like that was something that I was missing. And when I switched to that, I felt like it just became a lot more predictable just because I could take out a variable. …
“Speed control became much easier with the Phantom style. I felt like because of the weight of the head or just the way it swung, I just felt like it was a lot easier to control my putts from 15 to 25 feet. That’s where I’ve typically struggled. That’s definitely the most obvious impact I saw. …
“I think we work a lot on alignment with my putting, with getting the face square to the target line and something about the way they set up, I feel like they’re very square. I feel like that’s helped, but I really do think that the speed control has been the main benefactor (to my wins), holing a couple extra 10 to 20 footers. And that typically is mostly speed based, less start line than the closer putts.”