At Pebble Beach in February, Collin Morikawa won with a putter he had picked up during a casual round.
Early in 2026, Morikawa moved from a zero-torque mallet to a wide-body blade, then to a conventional mallet. He found that last option during a casual round, put it into tournament play and won at Pebble Beach the following week. The switch brought a quick result, but one win did not settle whether the club belonged in his bag.
Five Tour players tried something different this year, then reconsidered. Some went back to familiar equipment. Others needed more testing or a setup adjustment before the new club worked.
At the 2026 Valspar Championship, Matt Fitzpatrick used a Titleist GT3 driver with 9 degrees of loft and a Mitsubishi Tensei AV Raw Orange 65 TX shaft.
Putting changes came down to fit and feedback
For Matt Fitzpatrick, the switch came down to a specific scoring-range difference. He used a Bettinardi BB48 mid-mallet in late 2025 and won the DP World Tour Championship with it. He kept the putter for his first four PGA Tour starts of 2026, losing strokes putting in all four, then returned to his Bettinardi BB1 Flow prototype at the Players Championship.
Later-season coverage reported that Morikawa played in the Presidents Cup and finished 14th in the 2026 FedExCup standings. Those results show the February Pebble Beach win was not his only significant achievement that season.
Cameron Young's change started with an alignment problem. After losing strokes putting in five of his previous eight events, he put a Scotty Cameron 10.5 Xperimental prototype in play at the Tour Championship. He gained nearly four strokes putting on Friday and holed a long eagle putt during a round of 62.
By the Presidents Cup about a month later, Young had switched to a Phantom 5.5 shape he had tested at home. He found it easier to aim than the 9.5 or 10.5. The available independent search results do not include reliable confirmation from the PGA Tour. They also lack confirmation from manufacturers or Tier-1 outlets on those later equipment decisions.
Morikawa's move came faster. During a casual round in Las Vegas, he tried Daniel Kitayama's Spider Tour X flow-neck putter. He liked its feel and rear T alignment feature, then used it at the Phoenix Open and Pebble Beach. His February Pebble Beach victory was his first PGA Tour win since October 2023. He hit 43 of 56 fairways, or 76.7%, tying for fourth in driving accuracy. A later-season account placed him 14th in the FedExCup standings, according to 2026 coverage. He lost roughly 0.05 strokes on the greens for the week after gaining more than 1.6 in the final round. The win followed the switch, but it does not show that the putter alone caused it.
Iron and driver experiments needed more than a first impression
Rory McIlroy tried TaylorMade P7CB irons at the Australian Open in December 2025, then during two Dubai appearances in January. By the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in February, he had returned to his TaylorMade RORS Proto blades. The cavity-backs produced a slight right bias for his neutral-flight swing, so he had to release the club more fully. That adjustment worked in practice but proved harder to trust in competition after years of using a held-off feel.
The P7CBs scored 8.8 overall in MyGolfSpy's 2025 player's iron test, including 9.1 for accuracy and forgiveness. Their distance score was 7.7, placing them 10th of 22 models. The test made the irons worth considering, but it could not close the gap between a manageable range-session adjustment and a swing McIlroy trusted under pressure.
Scottie Scheffler began testing the TaylorMade Qi4D driver at the Arnold Palmer Invitational in March. He liked its more consistent spin numbers, but found it could produce a draw when he was trying to hit his controlled fade, including on center strikes. He returned to the Qi10 for the Players Championship. That switch did not immediately restore his confidence, and he struggled with misses to the right.
Later, Scheffler discovered that his Qi10 was approaching the USGA limit for face springiness. He revisited the Qi4D at the FedEx St. Jude Championship in August and kept it through the Presidents Cup. Testing it as a backup gave him time to find a weight balance that suited his fade: 13 grams in the front toe and 10 grams in the front heel.
MyGolfSpy's 2026 test ranked the Qi4D first among 42 drivers, with a 9.2 score. Scheffler kept it in his bag after further testing and adjustment.
