Tour Pros Still Using Old Models in 2026 | Next2NewGolf

When Aaron Rai closed out the 2026 PGA Championship at Aronimink with a final round 65, he did it with a TaylorMade M6 driver that's been out of production for years. It's one of the most striking proofs in recent memory that newer doesn't automatically mean better, and Rai is far from the only player at the top of the game who feels that way.

For many golfers, it's easy to assume that the newest clubs are automatically the best clubs. Every January, manufacturers roll out a fresh wave of drivers, irons and wedges promising more ball speed, more forgiveness, more everything. But walk down the range at any PGA Tour event in 2026 and you'll see plenty of the best players in the world swinging clubs that are five, six, even ten years old.

That's not nostalgia, and it's not a budget decision for these players. It's proof of one of the most useful equipment lessons golfers of any level can learn: performance beats release date, every single time. Driver, iron and wedge technology tends to move in small steps, not giant leaps, which means a strong model from a few years ago can still go toe-to-toe with this year's flagship release.

Main takeaways:

• You don't need this year's release to play elite golf.

• Equipment gains move in small steps, not big ones.

• Fitting matters more than release year.

• Previous generation and secondhand clubs are where the real value sits.

10 Tour Professionals still using “old” clubs in 2026

Scottie Scheffler

You may be surprised to find the world number 1 on this list, but in reality the only “new” addition in Scottie Scheffler’s bag is his Qi4D 7-wood, while the rest of his setup is built around models that are several years old rather than constant upgrades. 

At the top end, he plays a 2024 TaylorMade Qi10 driver and matching Qi10 3-wood, both of which he has tested against newer prototypes but continues to favour because of their consistent launch and dispersion. In contrast, his long game still includes a Srixon Z U85 driving iron from 2018, a club that remains in the bag for its controlled flight and reliability off the tee.

His iron set is the TaylorMade P7TW, originally released in 2019, while his wedges date back to 2020 and his putter is a 2023 model. In fact, most of the clubs currently in Scheffler's bag have been there throughout the most successful period of his career, helping him rise to and maintain world number one status while contributing to all four of his major championship victories.

Overall, the picture is clear: Scheffler’s bag is not defined by constant change, but by long-term trust in equipment that already performs. Even with access to every new release, he only makes changes when there is a clear performance reason, not simply because something is newer.

Brooks Koepka 

While equipment manufacturers release new products every year, Brooks Koepka continues to rely on two clubs that date back to an entirely different era of golf equipment.

The first is a TaylorMade M2 Tour 3-wood, originally released in 2017. Nearly a decade later, it remains one of the longest-serving clubs in Koepka's bag, having outlasted multiple generations of fairway woods from every major manufacturer. Alongside it sits a Nike Vapor Fly Pro 3 iron from 2014, a club that has remained a trusted option despite Nike leaving the equipment market shortly after its release.

What's most remarkable is that these clubs have been present throughout the most successful period of Koepka's career. The M2 fairway wood and Nike driving iron were both in the bag during his dominant run of four major championship victories in just over two years between 2017 and 2019, and they have remained trusted weapons as he added a fifth major title to his résumé.

That longevity says a lot. Koepka has had access to countless newer alternatives over the years, yet these two clubs continue to earn their place through performance rather than sentiment. In a sport obsessed with the latest technology, they are proof that once a club earns a player's trust on the biggest stages, replacing it becomes far more difficult than manufacturers would like.

Matt Fitzpatrick

Matt Fitzpatrick's bag is another clear example of proven performance outweighing newer technology. While manufacturers continue to release new iron models every year, Fitzpatrick still games a Ping i210 4-iron alongside Ping S55 irons from 5-9. Those models were originally released in 2018 and 2013 respectively, making the S55 irons the oldest clubs featured in this list.

The combo set reflects a deliberate split in priorities: the i210 is a players' distance iron, built with a bit more forgiveness for the longer, harder-to-strike club at the top of the set, while the S55 is a far more traditional, compact design aimed squarely at control and feel in the scoring irons. Pairing the two lets Fitzpatrick lean on a slightly more forgiving head where mishits are costliest, without sacrificing the workability he wants from 5-iron down.

What's particularly interesting is that Fitzpatrick's reliance on older irons hasn't held him back in the slightest. In fact, his 2022 US Open victory at Brookline remains the defining achievement of his career so far, alongside multiple PGA Tour wins this season and a place among the world's top-ranked players. Despite having access to every new iron release on the market, he continues to trust a setup that delivers the consistency, distance control and feel he wants.

Like many elite ball strikers, Fitzpatrick's decision highlights an important point: once a player finds irons that produce the right numbers and inspire confidence, replacing them simply because something newer exists becomes very difficult.

Ludvig Aberg

Even one of the most talked-about young ball strikers in the game is leaning on equipment that's a few years removed from the cutting edge. Aberg's Titleist TSR2 driver dates back to 2022, and his TaylorMade Stealth 2 fairway woods, used as both a 3-wood and a 7-wood, were released back in 2023. He has tested newer options in both categories, including Titleist's GT2 and a TaylorMade Qi4D 3-wood, but kept reverting back to the older heads each time.

The TSR2 is built for players who want distance without giving up the ability to shape shots, which suits a ball striker of Aberg's level far better than a head designed primarily to correct mishits. Paired with a low-to-mid-launching shaft, it gives him tight dispersion off the tee, something that's mattered more to him than whatever marginal gains a newer driver might offer. The Stealth 2 fairway woods tell a similar story: a carbon face design that still produces faster ball speeds than most current alternatives, with enough shot-shaping flexibility to suit his eye.

Aberg's irons are a slightly newer Titleist T100 model, so this isn't a player frozen entirely in the past. It's a player making selective, deliberate choices about where older equipment still wins.

Aaron Rai

Aaron Rai's rise into the world's elite has happened with equipment that's notably older than most of his rivals'. His TaylorMade M6 driver dates back to 2019, several release cycles behind TaylorMade's current Qi series lineup, while his irons are the same TaylorMade P7TW model mentioned earlier in Scottie Scheffler's bag, a tour-only blade built with Tiger Woods that's clearly trusted by more than one elite ball striker. His fairway wood is the more modern Qi10, giving his setup a mix of old and new rather than a complete throwback.

Rai is known as one of the most accurate drivers of the ball on tour, regularly ranking near the top of strokes gained: off the tee leaderboards built on precision rather than raw clubhead speed. That accuracy has clearly mattered more to him than chasing the newest face technology or marginal ball speed gains newer drivers promise. The P7TW irons reinforce the same priority, a compact, minimal-offset blade with very little forgiveness built in, designed entirely around feedback and control.

The proof of just how well this older setup performs is about as strong as it gets: that seven-year-old M6 was in the bag when Rai won the 2026 PGA Championship at Aronimink, closing with a 5-under 65 to claim his first major title and become the first English-born winner of the tournament in over a century. He had every chance to switch beforehand and never needed to. When the numbers work, the calendar year on the sole plate becomes irrelevant.

Justin Thomas

Justin Thomas has built one of the most efficient ball striking games on tour around two fairway woods that predate several equipment cycles: a TS3 3-wood from 2018 and a 915 5-wood from 2014. The 5-wood in particular is one of the oldest non-putters in play anywhere on the PGA Tour, older even than several clubs from Nike's now-defunct equipment line.

What makes the story interesting is Thomas has been blunt about why he keeps both of them. Asked directly whether he planned to swap out the 915, he explained that it isn't about struggling to hit newer models. It's about distance control: he's tried the latest 5-woods on the market and found they simply fly further than he wants from that club. It gives him a dependable carry of around 230 yards that he can stretch to roughly 265 when needed, a window he hasn't been able to replicate with newer designs without losing the precision he relies on. The TS3 gets less of the spotlight but does the same job at the top of his fairway wood setup, holding its own against newer Titleist releases on launch and spin.

Thomas isn't alone in this either. Several other current pros carry older fairway woods for the same reason: once a club produces a specific number they like, on carry, on spin, on shot shape, replacing it becomes a hard sell regardless of how long it's been in the bag. Major champions don't keep clubs around out of sentimentality. They keep them because the data says so.

Hideki Matsuyama 

Matsuyama's bag is a great example of mixing and matching across release years rather than buying into one brand's full annual lineup. The Cobra Radspeed Tour 5-wood dates back to 2021, and while it's been through multiple Cobra fairway wood releases since, Matsuyama has simply never found a reason to replace it. His Srixon Z Forged II irons are also 3 years old, having been released in 2023. They're built around a compact, players' profile with minimal offset and a forged feel through impact, which suits a swing as technically precise as his. Newer Srixon iron releases have leaned slightly more toward forgiveness and distance, neither of which is high on Matsuyama's priority list compared to control.

His RTX4 wedges tell a similar story. Cleveland has moved its newer RTX6 and RTZ lines toward a harder, more durable steel alloy designed to resist groove wear over time, a useful upgrade for most golfers but one that also changes the feel and sound at impact compared to the older, softer forging Matsuyama is used to. For a player whose short game is built on touch and spin control, that's exactly the kind of change that isn't worth making just because something newer exists. The common thread across all three clubs is consistent strike quality and predictable spin, which matter far more to a major champion's short game than whatever's new in the catalog this year. That kind of equipment stability isn't an accident. It's a deliberate choice, repeated year after year.

Viktor Hovland 

Hovland's i210s are the same model Fitzpatrick uses, now well outside PING's current iron lineup, having been succeeded by multiple newer players' distance designs in the years since release. For a player whose ball-striking is widely regarded as some of the purest on tour, the choice says a lot about how little Hovland feels he's giving up by staying with an older design, particularly in a category where forgiveness and feel both matter.

Interestingly, Hovland only fully moved off his PING G425 driver in June 2026, at the RBC Canadian Open, switching into a PING G440 LST after roughly six years and six of his seven PGA Tour victories with the older head. That same week he also added a TaylorMade Qi4D 3-wood, replacing the older Sim fairway wood he'd carried for years past its retail run. The G425 in particular had become something of a known quantity among equipment watchers on tour, a driver model most amateurs would associate with a previous generation of forgiving, game-improvement design rather than something a top ten player in the world would still be gaming years later. He'd actually tested PING's newer G440 models on and off for two full seasons before finally committing, repeatedly reverting back to the G425 whenever the new driver's higher launch or rightward tendency showed up in testing. That driver switch is a good reminder that even players who hold onto old equipment for a long time eventually do change, but it's performance and feedback that drives the decision, not the release calendar.

Patrick Cantlay

Patrick Cantlay's bag is packed with examples of equipment that has comfortably outlasted the industry's typical product cycle. His 718 AP2 irons date back to a Titleist release that first hit shelves in late 2017, while his SM7 wedges were released in 2018 and have since been followed by multiple generations of Vokey replacements. Perhaps most remarkably, Cantlay also carries a Titleist 915 fairway wood, the same as Justin Thomas, a model that originally launched in 2014 and remains one of the oldest clubs featured anywhere on this list.

The AP2s aren't an off-the-shelf set either. Cantlay's irons feature a specific leading-edge grind tailored to his preferred turf interaction, along with tungsten weighting that lowers the centre of gravity and adds forgiveness without sacrificing the compact profile elite ball strikers prefer. He has tested newer iron options, including Ping Blueprint S irons, but ultimately returned to the AP2s.

Cantlay is one of the most meticulous equipment users on tour, which makes his setup particularly interesting. This isn't a player who's indifferent to technology or reluctant to experiment. It's a player who has repeatedly tested newer alternatives and still chosen to stick with what performs best. His wedge setup tells the same story: at various points he has carried SM7, SM8 and SM9 wedges simultaneously, selecting each loft and grind on its own merits rather than automatically moving into the newest release. His bag is a perfect example of performance, not release date, driving equipment decisions at the highest level.

Russel Henley

Henley's bag mixes old and new more deliberately than almost anyone else on this list, but the throwback pieces do a lot of the heavy lifting. His Titleist TSi3 driver dates back to 2020, his TS3 3-wood all the way back to 2018, and the bulk of his irons, 5-iron through 9-iron, are the original Titleist T100 from 2019. He's tested newer Titleist drivers, including the TSR2 and the current GT3, even putting one in play for a tournament win, but kept finding his way back to the TSi3 by the end of the week.

The TS3 fairway wood is the standout piece of old equipment in the bag. Now nearing a decade old, it's outlasted several generations of Titleist fairway wood since, and Henley plays it at a slightly higher loft than standard to turn it into more of a precise scoring club than a pure distance option. The 2019 T100 irons tell a similar story: a compact, accuracy-focused players' iron that's remained the backbone of his set even as Titleist has released at least two newer T100 iterations in the years since.

Henley isn't precious about every part of his bag. He moved into newer wedges and a newer hybrid-replacing fairway wood when the data supported it. But the driver, 3-wood and irons that have anchored some of his best tour performances have stuck around year after year, proof that even players willing to experiment elsewhere know exactly which clubs aren't worth touching.

What Tour Pros Teach Us About Equipment

The pattern across all 10 of these bags is the same: performance wins, every time, over release date. None of these players are short on equipment deals or sponsor pressure to play the newest stuff. If anything, most of them have direct access to next year's prototypes before the public even knows they exist. They still choose older clubs because those older clubs perform better for their specific swing, ball flight, and feel preferences.

It's also worth pointing out just how far up the world rankings this pattern holds. As of June 2026, three of the top five players in the Official World Golf Ranking, Scottie Scheffler at number one, Matt Fitzpatrick at number four and Russell Henley at number five, all appear on this list. This isn't a quirk limited to journeymen or players running out the back end of their careers. It's standard practice among the very best golfers alive right now.

Tour pros also have something most amateurs don't use enough: real data. Launch monitors, spin numbers, dispersion patterns, strokes gained breakdowns. When a player like Hovland eventually does switch equipment, it's because the numbers told him to, not because a new driver hit the shelves. That data over marketing mindset is the single biggest lesson amateurs can borrow from how tour pros approach their bags.

Why Newer Doesn't Always Mean Better

Golf manufacturers operate on annual release cycles, and that's a business reality worth understanding before you buy. A new driver or iron set every year keeps a brand in the conversation, on shelves, and in golf media coverage, but it doesn't mean every single release represents a genuine performance leap.

Look at Cleveland's wedge lineup, the same one behind Matsuyama's RTX4's. The newer RTX6 and RTZ models moved to a harder steel alloy specifically to resist groove wear over time, a genuinely useful upgrade for a weekend golfer who plays the same wedge for years without regripping or replacing it. But it also changes the feel and sound at impact compared to the softer forging in the older model, which is exactly the kind of tradeoff a touch-and-feel player like Matsuyama has no interest in making. The "upgrade" solves a problem he doesn't have at the cost of something he relies on.

Cantlay's wedge history tells a similar story from a different angle. He's carried SM7, SM8 and SM9 heads simultaneously rather than swapping the whole set every time Vokey released something new, picking whichever loft and grind suited a specific shot rather than assuming the newest model was automatically better across the board. Three release cycles, and the right tool for the job wasn't always the newest one.

That's the pattern worth remembering: most year over year gains are genuinely marginal, a tweaked face pattern, a small CG shift, a new finish on the same underlying platform, while marketing tends to flatten every release into "most advanced yet" regardless of how much actually changed. Occasionally a true breakthrough does arrive. More often, the real difference between this year's model and last year's is something only a robot testing rig or a tour pro chasing a specific number would ever notice.

What This Means for Amateur Golfers

If tour pros, who have access to literally anything they want, and people whose entire job is to know exactly which clubs suit them, are happy gaming clubs that are five, six, even ten years old, that should change how you shop for your own bag.

Stop chasing release dates. Start chasing fit. A properly fit club from a few years ago will outperform an off the rack purchase of this year's flagship release for most golfers. Shaft, length, lie angle, loft, grip size: all of that matters more to your results than whether the model name has a "26" on it.

That's exactly why the secondhand market deserves a real look, not just a passing thought. Previous generation drivers, irons and fairway woods, many of them the exact same clubs you've just read tour pros are still using in competition, are widely available secondhand, often for a fraction of the original retail price. A driver that cost £500 new can frequently be found in excellent condition for under £200. The forgiveness, the distance, the feel: it's almost all still there, because the technology hasn't moved on nearly as much as the marketing suggests.

A couple of things to keep in mind when you're shopping secondhand. Forgiveness matters most for the majority of golfers, so look for larger heads, perimeter weighting and high MOI rather than the lowest spin numbers on the spec sheet. And match the driver to your game: beginners and higher handicappers want forgiveness and easy launch, while faster swingers will benefit more from adjustability and shot shaping options.

Buying secondhand also frees up budget for the parts of your game where precision genuinely moves the needle: a proper fitting, a wedge setup that matches your short game, a putter that fits your stroke. Spending less on the driver because a two or three year old model does the job just as well means more to spend where it counts.

Conclusion 

The best players in the world aren't swinging old clubs because they're sentimental or stubborn. They're swinging them because those clubs work, and working matters more than being new. That's the lesson buried in all 10 of these bags: performance is the only metric that counts, and a release date has nothing to do with how a club actually performs in your hands.

Next time you're tempted to upgrade purely because a new model just dropped, take a page out of Scottie Scheffler's book, or Brooks Koepka's, or Aaron Rai's. Get fit properly, look seriously at the secondhand market, and remember that some of the best clubs in the world right now are the ones nobody's marketing anymore.