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Golf clubs of the top 50 LPGA pros (WITB)

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Women’s golf is becoming increasingly popular and is catching up to men’s golf rapidly. This study on the increasing purse sizes of LPGA major tournaments confirms this fact. The purse of the Women’s PGA Championship has nearly doubled since 2013. You can read more about it here.

At this moment, the number of female golfers in the world is probably the highest in recorded history, and this number is rising year by year. Each year, thousands of young girls grab their first golf clubs and embark on their golfing journeys. These budding lady golfers often wonder which clubs their role models use to win the most prestigious tournaments.

Driven by this fact, our team at Golf Reporter looked into the golf bags of the top 50 LPGA professionals. We found some shocking statistics that might surprise many of you. In this article, we’ll talk about the golf clubs used by the top 50 LPGA pros, including the driver, fairway woods, hybrids, irons, wedges and putters.

However, it is worth noting that this data is for 44 out of the top 50 LPGA pros. The information for the remaining 6 golfers was either wholly or partially unavailable. These are Pajaree Anannarukarn, Yealimi Noh, Wei-Ling Hsu, Shanshan Feng, Su Oh, and Lauren Stephenson. That is why we have left those 6 out of this study.

We have compiled all the data into a table for your convenience. Here it is.

Analysis and Findings

After collecting the data and codifying it into a table, we began looking for patterns, and we found some quite interesting ones. We have classified them into respective club categories.

Drivers

The driver and the putter are the only two clubs guaranteed to be in every golf bag. Or so we thought. Oddly, one LPGA pro does not use the driver, and she’s quite a prominent figure.

We’re talking about world number 5, Ariya Jutanugarn of Thailand. She does not have a driver in her bag. Instead, she uses her 3-wood or her utility iron in the tee box.

Apparently, Ping drivers are all the rage among LPGA pros as 10 of them opt for them, with Ping G425 being the most popular. Patty Tavatanakit (world number 3) is the highest-ranking LPGA pro who uses Ping drivers. Not far behind is TaylorMade, with 8 users, including Moriya Jutanugarn (world number 11), who uses the M2 driver.

Callaway, PXG, and Titleist are the next ones in line, with 7, 6, and 5 users, respectively. The world number one, Nelly Korda, uses the Titleist TSi1 driver with Graphite Design Tour AD IZ 6S shaft.

Most of these LPGA golfers have different loft settings, but 15 of them prefer to go with the 9 degrees option. Furthermore, 10 players have chosen Fujikura shafts as their preferred option, while 9 others prefer Graphite Design or Mitsubishi shafts.

Fairway Woods

The configuration of fairway woods varies from person to person. Some prefer to use only a single club, while others prefer two or even three. Usually, 3-wood is the widely used choice of most golfers, and this list conforms to this fact. Everyone in this list uses a 3-wood, except one.

Nanna Koerstz Madsen is the only pro in the top 50 who doesn’t use the 3 wood. Interestingly, she’s also the only one who uses the 4-wood.

17 of these golfers also use a 5-wood along with their 3-wood. However, only four LPGA pros still use the extremely rare 7-wood, including the world number one, Nelly Korda. Her sister Jessica Korda, Leona Maguire, and Lizette Salas are the other three who use the 7-wood.

Here, Callaway has managed to get the better of its rivals by securing the trust of 11 golfers. Callaway is followed by Ping and TaylorMade, with 9 and 7 players, respectively. PXG, Titleist, and Srixon come next, with 6, 5, and 4 users, respectively.

Hybrids

34 LPGA pros from the top 50 keep hybrid golf clubs in their bags, which clearly suggests their widespread popularity among women golfers. This number is significantly higher than their male counterparts. You can read more about this here. In addition, nearly half (16) of these hybrids using women golfers prefer to play with a 19-degree loft.

In hybrid clubs, Ping is back on top with 9 players choosing their products. PXG is the 2nd most popular brand with 6 users. Other giants, including TaylorMade and Titleist, have only four users each. This might suggest that these brands have apparently not won the trust of women golfers when it comes to hybrids. Callaway is even farther behind with merely 3 users.

Irons

Similar to fairway woods, the configuration of irons varies from golfer to golfer. However, we found an arrangement that has repeated itself several times, 16 to be exact. The majority of LPGA pros favor a 5-iron to pitching wedge assortment. While only four golfers avoid the 5-iron and have 6-iron to pitching wedge iron sets. In addition, Nippon has established itself as the most preferred choice for iron shafts as 10 LPGA pros choose their products.

Here too, Ping has emerged as the most trusted choice with 10 players. Srixon makes a surprise appearance with 6 users along with Titleist and PXG. They are followed by TaylorMade and Callaway, each of whom is used by 5 players.

Wedges

Titleist makes a dramatic recovery in the wedges section. Titleist Vokey wedges have cemented themselves as one of the most reliable wedges for LPGA pros with 16 users. World number one, Nelly Korda, along with 8 others, uses their latest SM8 version.

Ping and PXG are the next most popular brands with 9 and 8 users, respectively. Cleveland Golf makes a dramatic appearance with 4 users, with Minjee Lee (world number 10) as the highest-ranking golfer who uses them.

Callaway and TaylorMade also fail to make a mark with only a handful of users. 4 players use Callaway wedges while only 2 choose TaylorMade wedges.

Putters

Callaway makes a strong comeback in the putters category, thanks to their state-of-the-art Odyssey putters. 12 golfers play with Odyssey putters, with Ariya Jutanugarn (world number 5) and Inbee Park (world number 6) as the highest-ranking golfers.

Titleist’s Scotty Cameron putters are not far behind with 10 users. Current world number one, Nelly Korda and her sister Jessica (world number 7), both use Scotty Cameron putters. Besides these two sisters, three others from the top 10 (total 5) are regular Scotty Cameron putter users.

Ping comes in at the third spot with 9 users. Leona Maguire (world number 8) is the highest-ranking golfer to use Ping putters. Other brands like TaylorMade and PXG are at 4th and 5th positions, respectively, with 5 and 4 players.

Bettinardi Golf makes its first appearance with two users, Patty Tavatanakit (world number 3) and Nasa Hataoka (world number 18). Other brands to make an appearance are Piretti and Swag Golf.

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Katie Fitzgerald is the managing editor at Golf Reporter. She found her passion in sports writing over 10 years back and has been playing golf since she was 10 years old.

5 Comments

5 Comments

  1. Pingback: Former LPGA pro shares detailed breakdown of expenses for a year on Symetra Tour – GolfWRX

  2. Michael

    Nov 3, 2021 at 10:13 pm

    Great info all in one place. My distances relate to mid or lower length LPGA pros and have been looking to properly gap the upper end of the bag. Two really strong trends split about 50/50 are shown here with a little variation on the 4H, 4I, or 4U:

    3 wood (15), 5 wood (18), 4 hybrid (22-23) [sometimes 4U/ 4I] or 3 wood (15), 3 hybrid (19-20), 4I [sometimes 4H 22-23]

    In case anyone else has tried some different setups and may relate – I’ve tried eliminating a 3 wood twice, due to the fitting recommendations of the higher lofted woods creating more carry and controlled decent. Tried a strong lofted 5 wood, 7 wood and gapping from there. Each time I found myself missing a 3 wood for certain situations fairly often. Seeing this list helps confirm the setup options I need to test.

    Always more of a challenge to get current women’s witb info. Thanks for putting it together and sharing some analysis.

  3. MattS

    Oct 8, 2021 at 12:01 pm

    Good info. Could you also give details of their shaft flexes (R, S, XS)? Would help golfers with similar swing speeds. Thanks

    • Hunter Warne

      Oct 8, 2021 at 1:16 pm

      Most of them have the shaft flexes listed. I’m guessing the one’s that don’t weren’t available.

  4. JungleJimbo

    Oct 8, 2021 at 12:57 am

    excellent, thanks for providing this in response to our request for more LPGA WITBs! 🙂

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Whats in the Bag

Vince Carter WITB 2024 (March)

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  • The NBA legend was teeing it up in the Arnold Palmer Invitational Pro-Am.

Driver: Ping G430 Max 10K (9 degrees)

3-wood: Ping G430 Max (15 degrees)

7-wood: Ping G430 Max (21 degrees)

Irons: Ping i230 (4-PW)

Wedges: Ping Glide 4.0 (50, 54, 58)

Putter: Ping

Ball: Renegade Mbu

Check out more photos of Vince Carter’s WITB here.

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From the Forums: I need more forgiveness in my irons – Looking for recommendations

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In our forums, our members have been discussing the most forgiving irons currently on the market. WRXer ‘TheShark1’ is on the hunt for a new set of irons, saying:

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Entire Thread: “From the Forums: I need more forgiveness in my irons – Looking for recommendations”

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At GolfWRX, we are a community of like-minded individuals that all experience and express our enjoyment of the game in many ways.

It’s that sense of community that drives day-to-day interactions in the forums on topics that range from best driver to what marker you use to mark your ball. It even allows us to share another thing we all love – buying and selling equipment.

Currently, in our GolfWRX buy/sell/trade (BST) forum, there is a listing for a Scotty Phantom X5 Knuckleneck Conversion.

From the seller: (@EdwardSnr): “Scotty Phantom X5- Knuckle Long Neck Conversion (Work done by NorCal Putters) This putter plays at 34 inches long, custom black tour dot added onto the putter face. Baby T Black grip on it and comes with OEM HC. Looking for 649 NOW 609 Shipped CONUS.”

To check out the full listing in our BST forum, head through the link: Scotty Phantom X5 Knuckleneck Conversion

This is the most impressive current listing from the GolfWRX BST, and if you are curious about the rules to participate in the BST Forum you can check them out here: GolfWRX BST Rules

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