What’s in the Bag?

A simpler Numbers Game this week. Instead of looking at stats, I decided to examine the bags of the guys on the PGA tour. Specifically, the equipment of all the players who won tournaments this year. My motivation behind this is to look beyond the advertising and claims of the manufacturers about having the ‘#1 Driver on Tour.” The following lists comprise every piece of golfing equipment used to win every PGA tournament this year. Period.

So what were the results? Read on to find out.

Drivers
Here is the breakdown of the manufacturers that have produced winning drivers on tour this year:

TaylorMade         8
Nike               6
Cleveland          5
Titleist           3
Callaway           4
Wilson Staff       2
Bridgestone        1
Ping               1

TaylorMade has produced eight winners this year, all with their r7 Quad. Tiger’s win in the British Open pushes Nike ahead of Cleveland, six to five. If there was a surprise here, it is Titleist. They currently have drivers in the bags of five of the top 20 players on tour but only have three wins this year. Also, two of the wins were with the 983K and not the new 905. The third win? The 983E (Jason Bohn). I predict that this will change, but thought there would be a few more in the win column for Titleist.

Irons
The winning iron manufacturers:

TaylorMade         7
Nike               6
Cleveland          5
Callaway           4
Titleist           2
Wilson Staff       2
Ben Hogan          1
Bridgestone        1
Ping               1
Srixon             1

Again we see TaylorMade at the top of the list. Also, again Tiger’s victory across the pond pushes Nike ahead of Cleveland. Callaway is as strong as they were in the driver list with four victories, and Furyk’s victory with a Titleist driver accounts for the three-to-two disparity seen here in Titleist irons. One manufacturer I’m surprised is not on this list is Mizuno. For years they were one of the leading companies, especially in irons. Mizuno has seemed to drop off the face of the earth. If someone spots them, let me know.

Wedges
Everyone knows that Cleveland and Titleist have the most popular wedges, but are they the winners on tour?

Cleveland          8
Nike               6
Titleist           6
Callaway           4
TaylorMade         4
Wilson Staff       2
Ping               1

The answer is yes. Cleveland has won eight times and Titleist has won six, maintaining second place with Nike (and Tiger Woods, who accounts for 67% of Nike’s victories thus far – Justin Leonard accounts for the other two). I wouldn’t have thought that Nike would be so high on the list, but it’s just another permutation of “The Tiger Factor” – a factor that tends to skew any kind of statistic.

I should make one note here. Sergio Garcia had both a TaylorMade wedge and a Titleist wedge, so I gave each manufacturer one full win since I’m counting victories with a manufacturer’s piece of equipment. The Spaniard just had to go and complicate things.

Putters
A category in past dominated by Ping has new regulars at the top of the list.

Scotty Cameron     9
Odyssey            9
Never Compromise   3
TaylorMade         3
MacGregor          2
Bettanardi         1
Nike Milled        1
Ping               1
Yes!               1

As you can see, Titleist (Scotty Cameron) and Odyssey are firmly planted at the top of the list having combined for 16 of the 27 wins this year. Thanks to Vijay, Cleveland’s putter brand Never Compromise has three victories as well. I wouldn’t expect there to be much of a change in the next year or so in this list as Odyssey and Titleist seem to have a corner on the putter market for the PGA Tour. But oh how Ping has fallen!

Balls
Not much of a surprise here.

Titleist           16
Nike                6
Callaway            6
Bridgestone         1
Srixon              1

Over half of the wins on tour belong to Titleist. All but one of the victories was with the ProV1x. Bart Bryant used the regular Pro V1 in his victory at The Memorial. The other top winners were Callaway and Nike. Nike had three different balls win this year: the Nike One Black, Nike One Gold, and Nike One Platinum. I guess the Nike One Copper didn’t do so hot this year.

Any surprises for you? Leave me a comment or email.