Several PGA Tour players, including Scottie Scheffler, Tiger Woods, Will Zalatoris, Justin Rose, Jason Day, and Taylor Montgomery, are testing new golf equipment during the Hero World Challenge week. The new gear includes the TaylorMade Qi10 LS driver, a new putter from Olson Golf, a Graphite Design Tour AD-VF shaft, a ‘broomhandle’ putting method, a Titleist TSR3, a new Bridgestone golf ball, and the standard TaylorMade Qi10 driver.
At Glance
‣ The Hero World Challenge week on the PGA Tour is an opportunity for players to test new gear set to be launched in early 2024.
‣ The TaylorMade Qi10 LS driver has been spotted on tour and on the USGA Conforming List, and is being used by players such as Rory McIlroy, Tommy Fleetwood, and Tiger Woods.
‣ Scottie Scheffler is using the TaylorMade Qi10 LS and an Olson Golf putter, a brand created by Californian Logan Olson.
‣ Will Zalatoris is using a new putting method, the ‘broomhandle’, with the head model being the L.A.B. Mezz.1 Max.
It’s Hero World Challenge week on the PGA Tour. This means new gear for a number of players as it’s the first time we’ve seen some of them in a while. There’s also new product set to be launched in early 2024 for them to test.
We’ve already spotted a few new bits of 2024 gear on tour recently. These have also emerged on the USGA Conforming List, including the TaylorMade Qi10 LS driver. Rory McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood had this in the bag at the DP World Tour Championship earlier in the month.
Tiger Woods has put the Qi10 LS in the bag this week. A standard Qi10 has hit the USGA Conforming List this week, too. So, who else has new gear in the bag this week? Let’s take a peek.
Scottie Scheffler, World No.1, has got TaylorMade’s unreleased 2024 driver in the bag. He also has a putter from a brand that many golf fans will have never heard of. Scheffler is using the TaylorMade Qi10 LS this week in The Bahamas in his first start since the Ryder Cup two months ago. He’s also swapped out his Scotty Cameron Newport for an Olson Golf putter, a brand created by Californian Logan Olson. Not much is known about it yet, but it’s similar to his previous model and comes fitted with a SuperStroke grip.
The 15-time Major winner, Tiger Woods, is another with the Qi10 LS in the bag this week. He also has a new driver shaft fitted in it, going with a Graphite Design Tour AD-VF shaft instead of his previous Fujikura Ventus Black 6 X model. Woods is still wearing FootJoy shoes, although he was spotted in a black pair on Tuesday that could have been a Nike prototype. But we can’t confirm that just yet.
Like Woods, Will Zalatoris is also making an injury comeback this week. He hasn’t teed it up since the WGC-Match Play in March. The American has always been known as a streaky putter, with some of his close-range strokes going viral on social media for their unorthodox nature. This week, he has a completely new putting method in play in the form of the ‘broomhandle’. He previously used the armlock technique but has gone for an even longer putter now, with the head model being the L.A.B. Mezz.1 Max.
Justin Rose has been an equipment free agent since parting ways with Honma in May 2020. He’s used a wide range of equipment and plenty of different brands ever since. He’s still testing his gear now, as the image above shows, with Rose hitting both a Titleist TSR3 and the new TaylorMade Qi10 LS during the Hero World Challenge Pro-Am. It remains to be seen which one goes into play during the tournament days.
The former World No.1 and Bridgestone Golf ambassador, Jason Day, is using a brand new Bridgestone ball this week in The Bahamas. Little is known about the golf ball just yet. He previously used the brand’s Tour B X model. “I have had the opportunity to work with the Bridgestone team on the design of the new ball over the last year. We’ve done a significant amount of testing and the final version is really dialled-in… I’m super excited to put it in play and see how it reacts in tournament conditions,” Day said.
Taylor Montgomery, the PGA Tour’s best putter, is the first PGA Tour pro we’ve seen using the standard TaylorMade Qi10 driver. This hit the USGA Conforming list earlier this week. The American isn’t even in the field for the Hero but was playing in the Pro-Am on Wednesday and is perhaps a reserve for the 20-man elite field. According to the USGA Conforming List, the Qi10 features Carbonwood printed on the sole, a Speed Pocket and a back weight port. Like the Stealth and Stealth 2 models, it again features a carbon face. It doesn’t feature the front draw/fade moveable weight port that the LS model has. There’s also a weight towards the heel section, which could be to promote a slight draw-bias. Lofts available are 9 and 10.5 degrees versus 8, 9 and 10.5 for the LS version that Woods and Scheffler have.
