The 11 Biggest Golf Equipment Stories of 2024

As 2024 comes to a close, it’s time to look back on what was a quiet big year for golf equipment. In 2024 alone, we had a major championship throw six covers in the bag, a pro use two drivers at the Masters, the same player involved in two of the weirdest gear stories, and a rival suggest changing the ball with another player and that player continues. a tear unlike anything we’ve seen since Tiger Woods. And there is more.

With that, keep reading below for the 11 biggest hardware stories of 2024.

Matt Fitzpatrick’s strangely refreshing discovery

Some professionals are absolutely meticulous about their equipment, knowing every specification down to the gram. Matt Fitzpatrick, given his insane dedication to keeping stats and records, could usually be thrown into that bucket, except earlier this year when he was struggling with a lefty bug.

The issue? Fitzpatrick had tested small back weights at the end of his arms in 2023 and had accidentally left a 4g weight at the end of the axle of his Titleist TSR3 driver until just before this year’s Players Championship. He only discovered the matter when he went to retrieve his driver.

“I put it back at home and the guy who did it, he put a little too much tape on it, so I took it to Titleist,” Fitzpatrick said at TPC Sawgrass. “They retrieved it for me and said, ‘Oh, you know there’s a weight there,’ and I almost had a heart attack.”

Tony two drivers

Employing two drivers is nothing new at the Masters, but unless you’re Phil Mickelson, people will call you crazy for trying it.

However, that’s exactly what Tony Finau did this year at Augusta National after Ping representatives helped him “fill up” his Ping G430 LST player and then built him another three-quarters of an inch shorter and with more lofts. His plan was to use the shortest driver on holes like No. 2, 7, 10, 14, 17 and 18, pending course and wind conditions.

Professionals choose 10 thousand

The biggest innovation in drivers in 2024 was two OEMs, TaylorMade and Ping, eclipsing the combined moment of inertia of 10,000 g/cm2, or the “10k” threshold with “MAX” products.

Max products were usually reserved for players at the slower end of the speed spectrum who needed higher spin and launch conditions, but with the introduction of the “10k” forgiveness, pros like Cameron Champ, Collin Morikawa, Lydia Ko and Nelly Korda all tried with the new one. fake technology.

Maxfli returns

Lexi Thompson made headlines in 2024, announcing her retirement from regular LPGA Tour competition, but also for signing an endorsement contract with Maxfli golf balls.

Maxfli has a storied history among the top levels of golf, but is now owned by Dick’s Sporting Goods and hadn’t sponsored a pro in years. The company asked Thompson’s agent Brett Falkoff if she would test their new Tour Series golf ball when her previous endorsement deal came up, and after initially declining, Falkoff said, “We were all shocked” by the results. .

“I’ve been testing the ball for the last month or two, especially in the wind,” Thompson said in January. “In the wind is the most important test (for) the ball, and I’ve seen nothing but a little lower spin, which is great in the wind, and it does even better in the headwind. This is very important to me and I can’t wait to play it.”

Maxfli also returned to the PGA Tour in landing Ben Griffin.

Ben An raises the 1-iron

Speaking of bringing back relics of the past on the PGA Tour, Ben An won in Korea on the DP World Tour in late October with a head-turning setup: A 1-iron instead of a 3-wood.

This isn’t your grandpa’s 1-iron, of course, as the Titleist U505 16-degree An iron uses a hollow-body drive iron designed to weigh as little as possible using tungsten to give iron release characteristics almost similar to wood. .

“I hit it high enough, I’ve got enough speed, I’ve got enough spin,” An said in a Titleist YouTube video earlier this year, “so why not try to build that iron that’s got really low loft, that can I hit it fairer off the tee? Because that’s the whole point of using the 3-wood.”

Fred Couples plays a 6-wood/hybrid system

Fred Couples, now 65, is going in a completely different direction with his bag placement these days. The 1992 Masters champion starting the games a bag full of headwear this yearsix (not counting barrels) including a driver, two fairway woods and three hybrids. That means the longest iron in his bag is a 7-iron (for which his magazine is still 170).

“Everybody keeps talking about them,” he says of his newly configured setup in a video from September. Other golfers may be embarrassed. Couples simply shrug off the stigma. “I’m like, so my longest iron is a 7. Who cares?”

Matt Fitzpatrick denied relief for the cracked driver

In his second appearance on this list, Fitzpatrick was at the center of another 2024 apparel controversy, but this time through no fault of his own.

During the final round of the BMW Championship, Fitzpatrick discovered a gash on his driver’s face and when he presented it to a rules official, he was denied the ability to replace the club because it was determined that the club was not “significantly damaged” damaged enough to be replaced. Because of Model Local Rule G-9, a driver cannot be replaced just because of a facial laceration.

Following the incident, the PGA Tour, in cooperation with other governing bodies, announced an update to Model Local Rule G-9, updating the basics for replacing a club cracks in the club head and club face.

The year of the mini driver

TaylorMade had released one “mini driver”, a smaller club with 11 or 13 degrees of loftevery year or so for the past decade, but this year, they started having company.

Along with TaylorMade’s BRNR Mini Copper, Callaway released the Paradym Ai Smoke Ti 340 Mini Driver at retail while Titleist released a Tour-only TSR mini driver.

The appeal is for players to replace their 3-woods with a club that travels shorter than their driver, which is possible to hit off the deck but is easier to hit off the tee than a 3-wood, and professionals have flocked to them.

While TaylorMade and Callaway are the only OEMs with mini drivers on the market right now, all signs point to more companies dipping their toes into that market in 2025.

“Zero-Torque” becomes the latest deployment craze

Zero-torque and lie-angle balanced putters are nothing new in golf, but their popularity increased on the PGA Tour and many of the major OEMs started coming out with their own versions of “zero-torque” setters.

Brands like PXG, Odyssey, Bettinardi and more all release gauges advertise “zero” or “reduced” torque, meaning the putter faces have an aversion to twisting at impact, leading to a more square on impact. All of this follows the trend of new brands like LAB Golf and Axis1, which have led the movement over the past couple of years.

Bryson’s Last Minute 3D Printed Braces

Bryson DeChambeau doesn’t need much convincing to try something radical in his bag, and prototype Avoda irons he debuted at the Masters would certainly qualify.

DeChambeau had Avoda, a California-based direct-to-consumer brand, 3D print the irons for him shortly before the Masters, and after the first round, the USGA deemed them non-conforming. But DeChambeau’s manager stepped in and created the grooves himself just in time for the clubs to be given the Augusta stamp of approval.

DeChambeau, of course, went on to grab an opening-round lead at the Masters before finishing 6th, earning a runner-up finish at the PGA Championship and then winning the US Open for his second major title.

Spider Scottie

This list was not ranked, but if it was, Scottie Scheffler switches to a Spider Tour X hammer just before the Arnold Palmer Invitational should be the dressage story of 2024.

While Scheffler had tried different hammers during his struggling 2023, in early 2024 Rory McIlroy was asked for his suggestion for the world No.1 and McIlroy explained how a hammer putter had helped his game .

Much to everyone else’s dismay, Scheffler listened and played a TaylorMade Spider Tour X off the stage with a hydraulic at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and won by five. He then won eight more events around the world in 2024, including the Masters, The Players Championship, the Olympic gold medal, the Tour Championship and three other PGA Tour Signature events.