“2024 PGA Championship: Top Equipment Highlights and Historic Moments at Valhalla Golf Club”
The 2024 PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Kentucky, is set to be a thrilling event, with the world’s top golfers vying for the prestigious title. The championship has a history of producing top-tier champions and plenty of drama, with Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy among the previous winners at Valhalla.
This week, GolfWRX got its first up-close look at what some of the LIV Tour players have in their bags in 2024. We also caught up with a few PGA Championship legends, such as Rich Beem and John Daly, and we dove into the bags of PGA Sectional qualifiers, too.
In total, we captured 47 different photo galleries this week, including 32 individual What’s In The Bag (WITB) forum threads. Here are 10 equipment highlights from Valhalla.
1) Brooks Koepka’s new putter: Koepka was previously using a Scotty Cameron T5.5 putter with a slant neck, which he used to win at the beginning of the month in Singapore on the LIV tour. This week, however, he tried a T5.5 with a plumbers neck instead of the slant neck, and it’s immediately going in the bag.
2) The lead tape king returns, with putting goggles: Phil Mickelson has always been one of the GOATs when it comes to lead tape usage, so it was no surprise to see his 64-degree custom Callaway wedge slathered with slabs of lead tape on the back. The big surprise was that lefty was spotted using ProAim putting training goggles on Wednesday during his warm-up session.
3) Dobyns’ old-school gamer setup: Matt Dobyn’s old Titleist 718 T-MB irons are so loaded with lead tape that the club is nearly unrecognizable. The head professional at Meadow Brook Club is making his sixth start in a PGA Championship, and he’s using a throwback Callaway GBB Epic driver with MOI-boosting lead tape and adjustable weight placements.
4) John Daly’s custom Sub70 irons and wedges: We first saw John Daly using $750 direct-to-consumer Sub70 659-CB irons and TAIII wedges at the 2023 PNC Championship, and he still has them in the bag, but he’s since stepped up the customization on the Sub70 clubs.
5) DJ’s custom putter: Dustin Johnson has always been one to test multiple putters week-to-week, and he has a keen eye for different alignment lines and crowns. This week, he’s opting for a completely gray TaylorMade Spider Tour “T3.0” prototype with a short slant neck.
6) Patrick Reed still rocking GrindWorks irons: Patrick Reed knows his stuff when it comes to equipment, and he’s a prolific tester. Still, however, the GrindWorks PR-101A irons are squarely in the bag after his departure to the LIV tour.
7) Beem’s Scratch set: Rich Beem, who won the 2002 PGA Championship at Hazeltine National, came to the 2024 PGA Championship at Valhalla with a bag full of Scratch Golf irons, which are loaded with lead tape and equipped with some of the coolest custom ferrules in professional golf.
8) Jon Rahm’s 10-iron: Before going to LIV, Rahm was using a Callaway Apex TCB pitching wedge. Now, he’s using a Callaway Apex TCB “10 iron.”
9) “Why so serious?”: Tyrrell Hatton, another LIV player in the 2024 PGA Championship field, channels his inner Joker to ask everyone, “Why so serious?”
10) Block’s “Proto” iron, from address: As you probably know by now, Block switched out of his old TaylorMade Tour Preferred MC 2014 irons, and into a full set of TaylorMade’s new “Proto” irons.
With the second major championship of the 2024 season coming to a close, we say goodbye to Louisville. We’ll see you next week at the 2024 Charles Schwab Challenge in Fort Worth, Texas after a champion has been crowned. Until then, don’t forget to check out all of our photos from this week at the 2024 PGA Championship!