Our weekly Tour Report highlights important golf equipment changes that PGA Tour players make week-to-week. Unfortunately, the most important piece of equipment in the bags of PGA Tour players this week might be their umbrella.

Rain is in the forecast throughout the week and into the weekend at The 2022 Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass, but the Tour Report plays on rain or shine. We’re mudders here at GolfWRX.

In addition to rain gear, there were also a number of interesting equipment topics that arose this week at The Players. Let’s dive right in.

Check out all of our photos from The 2022 Players Championship here.

Will Scheffler finally change out his longtime Nike fairway wood?

In the world of equipment free agents, there may not have been a more sought after player than 25-year-old Scottie Scheffler, who’s fresh off two PGA Tour wins in his last three starts. On Wednesday ahead of The Players Championship, Scheffler announced that he’s off the market and has signed a multi-year equipment deal with TaylorMade.

He’s been playing a TaylorMade Stealth Plus driver throughout 2022, and he’s been using TaylorMade irons for his entire PGA Tour career, so this wasn’t a complete surprise.

My biggest question in this deal, though, is whether Scheffler will switch out his longtime Nike VR Pro Limited 3-wood, which was originally released to the public way back in 2011. TaylorMade didn’t specify terms of the deal, but said that he’d be adding Stealth fairways to his bag.

During the practice rounds at The Players, Scheffler had both his old Nike 3-wood in the bag, as well as a new Stealth 16.5-degree fairway wood that he was testing.

When I asked Scheffler on Wednesday which fairway wood he’d be playing this week, he said he wasn’t yet sure.

“I haven’t decided which one I’m using yet this week,” Scheffler said. “It’ll be a sad day [when the Nike comes out of the bag], but it has to happen eventually.”

It’s yet to be confirmed which fairway wood Scheffler has chosen, but we’ll keep an eye on it moving forward. When he does finally switch out the Nike for a Stealth, we’ll have to pour one out for the 11-year-old Nike; it had a good run.

Scottie Scheffler’s 2022 WITB at The Players Championship.

Adam Scott goes Stealth 

Scott was in the equipment news last week because he played in the first round of the 2022 Arnold Palmer Invitational without a driver in the bag order to hit more fairways.

This week, Scott, who is no longer a full Titleist staffer through the bag as of 2022, is back in the news. While Scott has used a Titleist driver throughout his entire career, he tested TaylorMade Stealth Plus drivers and fairways ahead of The Players.

For the first round, it seems Scott has pulled the trigger on using TaylorMade metalwoods. He used a Stealth Plus 10-5 degree driver (Graphite Design Tour AD-DI 8X shaft) and a 15-degree Stealth Plus fairway wood (Graphite Design Tour AD-DI 9X shaft).

It’s weird to see Scott using a driver that isn’t a Titleist, but this could be the new norm going forward. Now an equipment free agent, Scott will likely continue testing different driver and fairway wood setups this year. We’ll be keeping a close eye on his testing sessions.

“Toe”-ny Finau’s putting drill

While I was hovering around the putting green at The Players, I noticed Tony Finau putting with the toe end of his putter, rather than the face. And, honestly, his stroke looked fluid and he seemed to be rolling it very well.

Intrigued about this drill, I asked Finau what the deal was.

According to Finau, the drill helps him focus on hitting the center of the “face” due to the smaller hitting area, and it helps him keep his stroke path more straight-back and straight-through.

Since he loves the feel of this drill so much, though, there might be something bigger in the works. Finau likes the feeling of having so much mass directly behind the hitting area, so he told GolfWRX “there’s maybe some creative putter in the works.”

Maybe this toe-drill is more than a drill. Maybe it was actually a testing session for a new Ping prototype putter. Hmm, the possibilities!

Webb Simpson switches drivers…finally?

For the last four years, Webb Simpson had been using a Titleist TS3 driver, which was released back in 2018. Simpson is notoriously slow to switch into new clubs, so there was nothing too shocking about it.

At The Players Championship, however, Simpson showed up with a new TSi3 driver in the bag. Wow, finally!

Well, after speaking with Simpson this week, he actually used the TSi3 one other time in competition. According to Simpson, he played the first two rounds at the 2021 Fortinet Championship in Napa with his old TS3 driver, but he played the weekend with the new TSi3.

During his next five events, though, Simpson switched back into the TS3 because he said the TSi3 was spinning a little too low for him.

In the two months prior to The Players, Simpson was out with a neck injury and had time at home to get dialed and conduct some product testing. He ended up figuring out the setup of the new TSi3, and eventually found 2-3 mph more ball speed compared to his old TS3 gamer.

It appears Simpson has finally committed to the switch.

Head over to PGATOUR.com for our full writeup on Simpson’s switch, and our exclusive quotes.

Custom Scotty Camerons abound

There were a bunch of new custom Scotty Cameron’s floating around the golf bags of PGA Tour players this week. It’s uncertain which of them will actually go into play, but I wanted to highlight some of them for your viewing pleasure.

Check out some of the awesome custom Scotty’s we spotted this week:

Paul Casey

Kevin Streelman

Webb Simpson

Hideki Matsuyama

 

All-new staff bags from Ping and Odyssey

You may see the caddies of Callaway and Ping staffers carrying bags with a new look this week. Odyssey revealed it’s new colorful “#1 putter in golf” staff bags, and Ping staffers will be using a yellow “PLD” staff bag.

The “PLD” stands for “Putting Lab Design,” which are the new custom Tour putters that released to the public this week, allowing general consumers access to Tour-level milled putters and fittings. For more on that story, click the link here.

Rahm switches back

Well, that was quick.

Jon Rahm’s brief experiment with an Odyssey White Hot OG #7S prototype putter, apparently, is over.

As a reminder, Rahm switched out of his 2021 U.S. Open-winning Odyssey White Hot Rossie S putter during the final round of the 2022 Genesis Invitational, opting instead to use an Odyssey White Hot OG #7S putter to help with his stroke and release. He then continued to use the #7 putter for the 2022 Arnold Palmer Invitational.

At The Players Championship, though, Rahm was back using his trusty Rossie S. He spoke to the press following his first round 69 to explain why it was back in the bag:

“It just needed a timeout last week. That’s it. Luckily we had — I’m going to start calling them browns because they weren’t even greens. They were browns last week [at Bay Hill], and that was enough to not want to use it again…

“It’s been a month of seeing putts go by the edge of the hole that were good, and that’s what it was. Sometimes — I’m usually the last person to ever blame the putter. But I felt like I needed to because that was kind of out of sorts.

“You know, went back to it today, and I feel like I almost — sometimes when you’re working on something and something is not working properly, I feel like I myself at least can put too much attention to it and I can be thinking too much on what’s going on with the putter, and I feel like this weekend completely reversed it.

“I said, it’s all good, let’s relax, and let’s try to get the speed of the greens. There’s nothing wrong technically. I tried to just get the speed of the greens, and it worked out beautifully. Almost kind of got me out of being too technical and more into putting as an art.”

Check out the full story over on PGATOUR.com.

Wolff’s custom logo golf ball

Last week at Bay Hill, young Matthew Wolff used TaylorMade Pix golf balls with Arnold Palmer umbrellas on their covers. This week, he’s using Pix golf balls with dancing wolves all over them.

The custom golf balls look cool, of course, and they continue to highlight TaylorMade’s ability to create unique Pix-style designs for players.

FootJoy x Buscemi shoes

Jon Buscemi (Steve Buscemi’s cousin) is a popular streetwear fashion designer, and he collaborated with FootJoy to create new Premiere Series Collection golf shoes for The Players Championship. Don’t be surprised to see FootJoy athletes such as Justin Thomas and Ian Poulter rocking them this week.

Six Figure Sneakerhead has a full write-up on GolfWRX about the collab, so if you’re interested in more info, check that out here.

Dustin Johnson tests putters (as always)

UPDATE from the first round: Johnson actually DID switch putters this week! Click here to read the full story and see which putter he used in round 1 at The Players.

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Every single week, Dustin Johnson tests a slew of different putter designs. Also, every week, Johnson ends up using the same TaylorMade Spider Tour Black putter (pictured on the right) in competition.

Plain and simple, Johnson likes to tests putters. He doesn’t change his actual gamer often, but he tests a number of different putter designs every week.

This week at The Players, we took in-hand photos of what he was testing. Check out the full forum thread here.

Kuchar’s quest continues

Matt Kuchar has been employing a right-hand armlock style of putting the last year or so, and he’s been testing out different Bettinardi putters to find the right fit.

According to Bettinardi rep David Kubiak, Kuchar wanted to try out a center-shafted Bettinardi armlock putter with the shaft placement well behind the face. Kubiak says it’s unlikely this putter goes in the bag this week, since Kuchar saw the putter the first time at The Players, but it could be an option going forward.

Kuchar’s quest to find the right putter to suit his inventive putting style continues.

And with that, we conclude this week’s Tour Report from The Players Championship. Enjoy the fifth major, and hopefully we see some sunshine and a Sunday finish. We’ll be back at it, rain or shine, next week at the Valspar Championship to conclude the Florida Swing.

Check out all of our photos from The 2022 Players Championship.