Everything is on the line at East Lake with 30 players battling it out for the 2026 FedEx Cup.
And with $10 million up for grabs, it’s all about dialing in that setup for four rounds at the Tour Championship.
One of those was the man who walked away with the spoils last year in Atlanta. Tommy Fleetwood, who won his first PGA Tour tournament 12 months ago on the grandest of stages, spent much of this year’s preparations dialing in a new putter on the greens, which, of course, had some cosmetic updates.
Fleetwood’s success in 2025 can largely be down to his switch into TaylorMade’s Spider lineup and the benefits of a high moment of inertia (MOI) putter head. He spent most of that year in the Tour head, the largest model TaylorMade offers without going zero-torque, but this season, Fleetwood has dabbled with the smaller Tour X head. The likes of Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy both use.
Now he’s looking to move into the Tour V, which has a more forward center of gravity (CG). The reason dates back to Fleetwood’s blade tendencies, a putter style he used for much of his career, and his stroke being better suited now than it was a year ago to a putter with more rotation.
“His kind of journey of his putting stroke has been pretty good and the work he’s done with Phil Kenyon, he can kind of almost use anything really,” said TaylorMade putter rep James Holley, who likened Fleetwood’s putting stroke to that of his full swing.
“He definitely likes something on the side of toe hang and that’s based on his stroke and kind of his release pattern. If you look, he’s one of the best iron players in the world, he plays very good face control and plays that draw. So giving him something he can kind of work off and close that face has been really helpful for his putting kind of across the board.”
Without returning to a blade for maximum forward CG, the Tour V offers a similar feeling along with the longer blade length, whilst also offering the forgiveness of a mallet. The V’s shaping, specifically the putter’s different sole draft compared to that of what Fleetwood had been using, offered him a potentially better option.
Arguably the more striking change with Fleetwood’s putter this week is not just the head change, but also the move to a new alignment system. Even since his move to the Spider lineup, Fleetwood has worked with Holley to help frame the ball better against the clubface, first using a custom-drawn alignment aid Holley had to mark with Sharpie, to what TaylorMade now calls its “Pilot Eye” featuring two parallel lines to the face and a center dot. This time around, Fleetwood’s Tour V features 11 laser-etched lines running the full length of the putter.
“Anytime you give him one singular, like a long line for instance, or one small line, I think that’s for him not super great to line up,” Holley said. “… That’s kind of initially why he went into the Spider X with no true path. You still have the shape of the true path there; obviously it’s kind of the shadow alignment piece. And this V is kind of similar thing with the lasered lines on it gives him more of a track to align with rather than just one singular line.”
The new alignment aid was made possible with the help of TaylorMade’s CAD designer, Reed Potter, who worked with Holley and Fleetwood on visual designs.
“We can do a lot of stuff with laser that maybe you can’t necessarily do as efficiently with a regular mill, like if we’re milling in sight lines as far as depth and how intricate you can get,” said Holley.
Cameron Young continues to tinker
Cameron Young is in the midst of a career year, and one that could be a FedExCup victory away from being voted the PGA Tour’s Player of the Year. With to victories already (one at The Players Championship), he’s already in the running.
But despite the season so far, there’s still a spot (or two, just keep reading) that isn’t settled. Just ask JJ Van Wezenbeeck, Titleist Tour Rep, about the hardest club to fit.
“They’re all going to say 3-wood because it needs to be really good off the ground, it’s got to be really good off the tee,” said Van Wezenbeeck. “Sometimes it’s got to be hot, sometimes it’s got to be high. So it’s got to do a lot. It needs to be incredibly versatile.”
With that, Young has moved into a Titleist GTS3 for the final two stops of the Playoffs. It’s his fourth different option he’s played this year, having used his old GT1 3Tour at 14.5 degrees, the unreleased prototype GTS 3W at 15 degrees, and then also the GT 280+ tour-only mini driver at 13 degrees.
This time around he’s adding loft by using a GTS3 4-wood head cranked down to 15.75 degrees, because of his lower-launching, lower-spinning golf ball.
“For Cam Young playing the double dot golf ball, we really love that with the irons. And sometimes as he makes swing changes or as they move through the playoffs in what course conditions are, we love having options of that part of the bag,” Van Wezenbeeck explained. “… it’s a really good option for him that has some loft, has some spin and really helps him with some of the through yardages off the tee.”
The GTS3 is a lower-spinning version compared to the GTS prototype, so Van Wezenbeeck and Young were able to add some loft, which Young “really likes from a directional standpoint,” and it allows Young “to deliver the face to path how he wants,” according to Van Wezenbeeck.
Heading to East Lake, Young has moved from the Mitsubishi Tensei 1K Blue 80 TX back to his 1K White. For Bellerive, Van Wezenbeeck explained that Young like “feeling something that he has some spin on and that he can draw when he wants to,” but with East Lake’s setup, the boardier 1K White profile gives Young a more consistent flight and one that Van Wezenbeeck called a “one trick pony.” Sometimes knowing a club can do one thing great is better than the versatility but with added risk.
One club that has been consistent for Young is his Scotty Cameron Phantom 9.5R Tour Prototype, so it was surprising to see him testing out a different putter in practice rounds in Atlanta. Although if you do a little digging, Young has dropped from 7th to 113th in SG: Putting on Tour.
The putter in question is a Scotty Cameron Phantom 10.5 Xperimental Prototype, a similar style mallet head to what he’s gamed for all three of his Tour victories. The major difference between the two is the face, which features a custom aluminium insert, something that is becoming more popular on Tour recently.
A reason for using aluminium is that it helps designers shift the CG further toward the rear, due to the metal being lighter than steel, and it helps increase a putter’s MOI without adding weight to the rear.
Is Adam Scott’s putter shrinking?
Adam Scott never shies away from testing new putters each week when he’s out on Tour. Even at the Tour Championship, this was no different.
However, on the practice putting green at East Lake, Scott’s experimentation with a L.A.B. Golf DF3 Armlock putter quickly turned to a real consideration, thanks to some time testing the putter on Grasp Technology’s Smart Putting Gate.
The unit uses high-speed cameras to capture the ball rolling off the putter, along with different lasers to measure three of the four key elements of putting – speed, line, and impact location.
Scott spent almost two hours with the armlock option, a method he has used before, but famously transitioned mid-round away from it at the 2019 Farmers Insurance Open. It was that same year that Scott promptly tested a L.A.B. Golf putter for the first time, so could we now be in for an amalgamation of the two?
Odds and Ends
Hideki Matsuyama’s golf bag offered a bevy of new gear to share. Firstly, he’s testing out a Srixon ZXi RKT D model 5-wood, which looks like it features a deeper face compared to the standard model. He also has two ZXi5+ irons, both featuring crazy modifications. Finally, the Japanese golf star was greeted early week with two custom Bettinardi putters, both featuring the “Fitz Face” C-groove milling. Per Matsuyama’s request, the milling is 25% shallower to allow for a more audible strike.
Speaking of Japanese, Chris Gotterup had a yet-to-be-released Bridgestone B-Forged 100CB Iron 4-iron in the bag for the playoffs. Its compact cavity-back design gives the three-time winner a little more forgiveness when needed, which, with his length, isn’t that often.
Rory McIlroy has returned to his TaylorMade Qi10 3-wood. He spoke earlier in the week about TaylorMade’s transition to a biannual product cycle and the benefits for him and other pros out on tour. KBS launched three new putter shafts. The Tour GPS graphite putter shaft is now available in a 155-gram option.
