Golf’s rarest club is making a PGA Championship appearance | Tour Report

Welcome to Fully Equipped’s weekly Tour equipment report. Every Friday of PGA Tour weeks (plus other times, if news warrants), GOLF equipment editor Jack Hirsh runs you through some of the biggest news surrounding golf clubs on Tour, including changes, tweaks and launches.

After one round, Aronimink is proving more difficult off the tee than originally anticipated, and one of the early leaders is navigating that challenge with golf’s rarest club.

Yes, Aldrich Potgieter is gaming a 1-iron this week, and it’s helped him contend at the PGA Championship (tied for the lead after the first round and the solo leader at the time of this writing on Friday).

Off-the-tee play wasn’t much of a story in the lead-up at Aronimink, which is hosting a PGA for the first time in 64 years. The Donald Ross gem measures just 7,394 yards, short by modern major championship standards, and players contemplated bomb-and-gouge strategies for the layout.

“Strategy off the tee is pretty nonexistent,” Rory McIlroy said in his pre-tournament press conference. “It’s basically bash driver down there and then figure it out from there. … When these traditional golf courses take a lot of trees out, it makes strategy not as much of a concern off the tee.”

That comment came back to bite McIlroy, as he hit just 5 of 14 fairways and lost nearly a half shot to the field off the tee in an opening-round 74. Turns out the wild undulations and firm conditions of Aronimink’s fairways made them difficult to hold. Missing the fairway also proved unexpectedly penal, as the average proximity difference between the fairway and not on Thursday morning was nearly six feet worse than the average PGA Tour host course, according to Justin Ray.

While many players opted to keep their typical top-of-bag setups, Potgieter took the interesting approach of adding a 1-iron in addition to his regular PXG 2-iron. The slightly longer build checked in at just over 15 degrees of loft, which gave the club a touch of right bias.

Now, like many of the 1-irons you see on the PGA Tour from time to time, this isn’t your grandfather’s 1-iron. This is a hollow-bodied club with a graphite shaft designed to get the ball in the air. I wouldn’t advise anyone to hold Potgieter’s 1-iron (which he referred to as a 3-wood in a press conference) up during a lightning storm.

The club is rare by PGA Tour standards and if ever seen, it’s usually during the Open Championship or Scottish Open.

But Potgeiter’s 1-iron has some unique abilities even among other butter knives. As PXG’s Justin Shepherd told GOLF, the new Gen 8 driving iron’s weight adjustability allowed Potgieter to add the club in place of his fairway wood because they could straighten out his ball flight more easily.

“Playing with the weight and lie angle, as I went a little more upright … he actually was losing some ball speed, so he obviously wasn’t hitting it as well,” Shepherd said. “We moved back to the lie angle fit, then we could work on the ball flight without changing the two things.”

Potgieter’s 1-iron features a 12g weight in the heel and a 7g weight in the toe to help him turn it over. His 2-iron is more neutral.

With the 1-iron, which is 5/8 of an inch longer than the 2-iron with the same Nippon Modus GOST shaft, Potgieter carries the ball only a few yards farther than the 2-iron, but its runs out nearly 30 yards farther while reaching 170-172 mph ball speeds.

While Potgieter hit driver off the tee 11 times on Thursday, his driving irons came in handy on three tee shots and his approach to the par-5 9th. It all added up to a share of the first-round lead.

Flatstick swaps

One thing that has rung true about the challenge of Aronimink has been the difficulty of its signature Donald Ross domed greens. Was that the reason a number of players chose to make putter changes when tweaks during major weeks are usually more subtle?

The most notable move was Brooks Koepka, who moved into a new TaylorMade 2026 Spider Tour V from his previous 2025 Spider Tour X. Koepka reportedly broke his previous putter at the One Flight Myrtle Beach Classic last week, necessitating the change. He spent several hours working through various mallet putters on Monday before settling on the new Spider Tour V.

We still don’t know much on the new Spider Tour V, which appears to have been redesigned from the previous version that’s in Shane Lowry’s bag. The previous Spider Tour V was the most forward CG mallet in the TaylorMade lineup, making it feel like a blade.

Koepka’s new Tour V appears more compact and the weight ports are forward in the head, which seems to indicate a similar goal. Koepka is likely looking to find something that feels like his previous Scotty Cameron Newport 2 Teryllium putters.

But more surprising was that Alex Fitzpatrick, fresh off a Cinderella three-week run after winning the Zurich Classic team event, swapped putters.

The young Fitzpatrick went from his silver Odyssey Ai-ONE No. 7 S to a Navy Ai-ONE No. 7 CH.

While the change from silver to navy is interesting, it turns out the change from a slant neck to a crank hosel is the key switch.

Odyssey Ai-DUAL #7 S Custom Putter

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Odyssey reps Harry Shih and Cody Hale handled the change because Fitzpatrick, a gear-free agent, said he felt like he was leaving the face open at impact. In his first two events as a PGA Tour member, Fitzpatrick lost nearly a half-shot per round on the greens.

“Just gave him more face awareness,” Shih told GOLF. “He felt like the face was hanging open so we went to the crank so he could square the face up easier. Quintic data confirmed it.”

Hale added that the Crank Hosel matched his stroke rotation better.

“We also went 1 degree more upright to better match the shaft plane to his forearms, which he and his putting coach Andy Paisley like to see in his arm structure,” Hale said.

Sahith Theegala also went back to his Anser 2 gamer after a one-week trial with an Ally Blue H mallet.

And continuing a trend of what might become the PGA Tour’s next hot putter, Tom Hoge added a new Phantom 9.5R, the same model putter Cameron Young uses and Justin Thomas recently added.

Spieth goes longer; Fowler goes shorter

Thursday was a bit of a trip back in time for Jordan Spieth as he chases the career Grand Slam, but it was the driver that was dialed for Spieth, unlike how it was 10 years ago.

Spieth gained 1.93 strokes off the tee on the field in Round 1, ranked second in the field. He missed just two fairways.

Turns out he made a tweak to his GTS2 driver last week after putting it in play at Doral, going to a longer, 46″ Fujikura Ventus Black shaft.

Thanks to the increased stability of the GTS2 head he found he was able to go longer and down in loft (from 10 to 9) to get more speed. Spieth also has his GTS2 front weighted with 9g in the front and 3g in the back to get even more speed.

He gained .663 strokes a round off the tee at the Cadillac but then picked up more than a stroke a day at the Truist with the longer build. Since adding the GTS2, he’s gone from 113th in SG: Off the Tee to 77th in just two weeks.

Titleist GTS2 Custom Driver

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But on the flip side, Rickie Fowler shortened his driver this week.

After using a 45″ driver for the last few weeks, Fowler is back again using a shorter build, but this time at 43.25″, almost certainly the shortest driver on the PGA Tour. In fact, it’s the same length as his mini driver.

Fowler is having one of his most accurate seasons on the PGA Tour in terms of driving accuracy and has used a 44.125″ driver for much of the season. He opened with an even-par 70 on Thursday.

Golf Pride again dominates grip count

As is typical, the overwhelming No. 1 grip at the PGA Championship was Golf Pride.

All but 11 of the 156 players in the field at Aronimink played Golf Pride grips this week, continuing the most dominant run in golf equipment.

Check this out

This section is dedicated to cool photos we’ve snapped recently on Tour, but haven’t had a reason to share yet. For this week, check out Christiaan Bezuidenhout’s new PXG 0317 Tour prototype irons.

Odds and Ends

Some other gear changes and notes we’re tracking this week.

Christiaan Bezuidenhout added PXG’s 0317 Tour Proto irons (above) with KBS Tour 125 S+ shafts … Lucas Glover switched to the GTS2 driver after adding the fairway woods last week … Max Greyserman added Callaway’s Quantum TD driver with Ventus Blue 6-X … Viktor Hovland added a Ping G440 Max 3-wood and G440 3-hybrid to his bag … Greyserman and Ryo Hisastune switched to Vokey’s A+ grind to get faster through the turf … Haotong Li is following in the footsteps of Fowler and Gary Woodland by adding a Scotty Cameron GOLO 7 CS … Denny McCarthy (GTS2 9.0) and Luke Donald (GTS3 9.0) added new Titleist GTS drivers non-contracted … Fujikura lead the driver shaft count with 46.2% of the field … Maverick McNealy switched to the new Fujikura Ventus TR Black+ 6-X in his driver.

3 things you should read/watch

A selection of GOLF content from the past week that may interest you.

Hideki Matsuyama is golf’s most notorious tester. Here’s what makes his bag | Bag Spy – Take a deep dive into the bag of Hideki Matsuyama and see why, even as he tests more than anyone, he continues to play mostly the same stuff.

This Aronimink feature has pros re-thinking their wedge setup at the PGA – Aronimink is the first chance for PGA Tour players to see bent grass this season. See what Vokey’s Aaron Dill says is the key to handling northeastern turf.

Cameron Young reportedly playing golf ball that would conform under rollback – Cameron Young revealed on Wednesday that his Titleist Pro V1x Double Dot golf ball passed the new rolled back conformance test. See what that means and what it’s a big deal.

The author welcomes your comments at Jack.Hirsh@golf.com.

Want to overhaul your bag in 2026? Find a club-fitting location near you at True Spec Golf.

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