While hitting the ball a long way has its obvious advantages, golfers on the PGA Tour need to match up both distance and accuracy in order to become the ultimate driving machine. ‘Drive for show, putt for dough’ is a phrase often thrown around, but in fact 4 of the top 5 in Total Driving (a statistic used on the PGA Tour reached by combining a player's performance in both driving distance and accuracy) finished in the top 6 in the FedEx Cup rankings for the 2023/24 season!
WATCH:We test and compare the best drivers of 2024
While a lot gets said about how far some of these players hit the ball, I’m not sure enough credit gets given for how accurate they are with the big stick in hand. To compete at the top level in the game every part of your game needs to be firing, but there’s no denying hitting the ball both long and straight with a driver in hand contributes massively to the success these players are seeing throughout the season.
Getting dialled in with their equipment is a big part of how the leading players can drive the ball so well. Many of the best drivers on the market are now split into categories such as the most forgiving drivers, or best drivers for mid handicappers but are these the same as the models used by the best in the game? Below you’ll find what models the top 10 drivers of the ball on the PGA Tour used this past season to assert their dominance off the tee.
1. Ludvig Aberg
The Swedish superstar burst onto the scene in 2023 and picked up his first professional win just 75 days later. Aberg is often referred to as a robot due to his perfectly balanced and repetitive golf swing which results in him hitting the ball out of the middle of the clubface most of the time. What helps Aberg drive the ball a long way with a seemingly effortless swing is the fact he stands at 6ft 3” and can generate a lot of width due to having long arms as levers.
Shortly after turning professional Aberg announced a club partnership with Titleist despite already using the brand's TSR2 driver. Titleist has since released the GT2 and GT3 driver but Aberg hasn’t exactly been starved for success and as the number one driver of the ball on the PGA Tour, and so isn't in a hurry to make the switch. His TSR2 driver is a 9° head set in the D4 SureFit setting, which sees the loft creep up to 9.75° while maintaining a standard lie angle. Despite being out injured and recovering from knee surgery right now, I’m sure we’ll see the Texas Tech Alum back on the course hitting more fairways in no time.
2. Scottie Scheffler
The current world number one had a year to remember during the 2023/24 PGA Tour season where he picked up 6 regular season wins (7 if you include the Tour Championship). While Scheffler is no slouch when it comes to ball speed, he only ranks 61st on the PGA Tour in driving distance, averaging 303 yards, but his ability to control the face at fairly high speed sees him rank 14th in driving accuracy percentage, hitting 66.9% of fairways. When the best iron player in the world is hitting that many fairways, the rest of the field is always going to have something to worry about.
Scheffler is a TaylorMade staff player and uses the TaylorMade Qi10 driver in an 8° head, set at 8.25° with a D4 swing weight. He powers this driver with one of the most popular driver shafts on the tour - the Fujikura Ventus Black 7X.
3. Rory McIlroy
Despite winning twice (albeit one of those coming in the Zurich Classic where he partnered Shane Lowry) the Northern Irishman will no doubt feel a little deflated this season after missing out narrowly on the US Open against Bryson Dechambeau and more recently against Billy Horschel in the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth.
Rory has always been a supreme driver of the ball, producing some of the highest ball speeds we see each week on tour and being able to launch the ball into the stratosphere. Like Scheffler, McIlroy is a contracted TaylorMade player and also uses the TaylorMade Qi10. Despite playing at the same 8.25° of loft as Scheffler, the head Rory uses is actually a 9° head lofted down. This will have the face sit slightly more open at address whereas Scheffler's head that has had loft added would close the face angle ever so slightly. This is all very much a matter of personal preference and what the player likes to see behind the ball at address. He also uses the same Fujikura shaft as Scheffler just in a slightly lighter 6X shaft.
4. Jhonattan Vegas
Jhonattan Vegas has had somewhat of a turbulent year on the PGA Tour despite picking up his first win in seven years at the 3M Open. The big hitter from Venezuela relies on his power and accuracy off the tee to help him overpower golf courses and loves to play on the front foot. Vegas ranks 8th in driving distance on the PGA Tour, averaging 313 yards with his longest drive of the year measured at a whopping 385 yards.
Vegas is a free agent, meaning he can pick and choose what equipment he likes to use as he is not sponsored or contracted by a specific brand. His driver of choice is a 9° Titleist GT3. This driver has proven to be extremely popular on tour since its release with both Titleist staff players and non-contracted players. Vegas uses a Fujikura Speeder NX 70 TX shaft, which only players with his strength or power would even think about putting in play.
5. Xander Schauffele
There was only one player who had a better year than Schauffele and that was the world number one. Xander, otherwise known on tour as ‘X’ , picked up his first and second major championships during the 2024 season. The Californian Native amassed 15 top-tens during the season and a large part of his success was his ability to drive the ball extremely well. Schauffele has always been known as a great ball striker but his increased ball speed and therefore distance really took his game to new heights this past year.
The current world number two uses a Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke Triple Diamond driver in a 10.5° head playing at 10.1°. The Triple Diamond head is the lowest spinning head out of the Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke range and is often favoured by the players using Callaway product on the PGA Tour. Xander is the first player in the top 5 in driving to not use a Fujikura shaft and opts for a Mitsubishi Diamana PD 70 TX instead.
6. Sam Burns
Averaging 307 yards from the tee, Burns definitely has speed to burn, combine that with the fact he still hits just over 60% of the fairways he aims at and has one of the best putting strokes on tour, the LSU Alum is someone we’re likely to see on our screens for many years to come.
Interestingly Burns actually games the 2023 Callaway Paradym Triple Diamond S driver and hasn’t been persuaded to move into the newer Paradym Ai Smoke model like Schauffele. The ‘S’ model is a tour only offering which is an even smaller, compact version of the Triple Diamond and has a slightly deeper face. He plays a 9° head that is cranked up to 10°. Burns powers his driver with a Fujikura Ventus Blue 7 TX which is a slightly higher launching shaft than the Ventus Black used by Scheffler and McIlroy.
7. Austin Eckroat
Eckroat picked up his first PGA Tour win in the 2024 season with a victory at the Cognizant Classic in West Palm Beach, Florida. The Oklahoma State graduate relies on supreme ball striking to help him dominate golf courses and make up for his sub-par putting. Eckroat tips the scales a little by actually proving to be extremely accurate with his driver, hitting 67% of the fairways he stares down and while he isn’t slow, he ranks 100th on the PGA Tour for average driver clubhead speed at 115.28mph.
The Oklahoma native uses a Ping G430 LST 9° driver set at 9.25°. Despite not being one of the quickest swingers of a club on the PGA Tour, Eckroat uses one of the most stout shafts on the market in the Project X HZRDUS Smoke Green 70g 6.5. Not only is this already a very stiff, low launching and spinning shaft, he also has this shaft tipped 1 inch which will only firm the tip section of this shaft up even more.
8. Tommy Fleetwood
Tommy Fleetwood is a man known for his ball-striking prowess and that signature held off finish post impact. He is still chasing that elusive maiden win on the PGA Tour with his best finish coming at the RBC Canadian Open where he finished runner up to Canada native Nick Taylor.
The longest on the PGA Tour seemingly get longer year-on-year on the PGA Tour and while 300 yards once upon a time was a desired number, Fleetwood averaged 300.4 yards during the 23/24 season and is ranked 90th in driving distance. His ability to hit it 300 yards and hit just under 70% of fairways is what sees him place in the top-10 in total driving.
Fleetwood is under contact with TaylorMade and chooses to use the TaylorMade Qi10 LS driver in a 9°. The LS driver is the lower spinning alternative to the standard Qi10 model used by McIlroy and Scheffler. It’s quite interesting to see two players faster than Fleetwood using a higher launching and higher spinning driver but this shows that drivers need to be fitted on more than just speed and spin. Launch angles, attack angles and shape of the head all has an influence on what model of driver would suit each player best. Fleetwood plays a Fujikura Ventus Blue TR 6X shaft in his driver.
9. Jordan Speith
Jordan Spieth is a player that would surprise many on this list as there’s a misconception that he’s slightly erratic from the tee and relies on his short game to bail him out. That may have been the case in his younger years on tour but his driving is in fact by far the strongest part of his game. Averaging just under 307 yards from the tee, Speith is 'sneaky long’, he's someone who doesn’t look powerful to the eye but can really get it out there.
Like a couple of players on this list, Speith is very reluctant to change something if it’s working and that is certainly the case with his driver. He uses a Titleist TSR2 driver in a 10° head, set at D1 in the SureFit hosel which brings the playing loft down to 9.25°. Speith is yet again another player who loves the stability of a Fujikura Ventus shaft, opting for the Black 6X model.
10. Min Woo Lee
Otherwise referred to as the ‘Chef’ or ‘Dr Chipinski’ Min Woo Lee certainly knows how to cook with the driver and has surgeon-like hands around the greens. The charismatic Australian is a fan favorite out on the PGA Tour largely down to his ability to absolutely smoke a driver. The 26 year old ranks 5th in driving distance, averaging 315 yards and 124.28mph clubhead speed.
Min Woo Lee has also stuck with an older model rather than making the switch into the current Callaway model. He actually plays the same driver as Sam Burns, the Callaway Paradym Triple Diamond S in a 10.5° head, playing 9.5°. With speed to burn, stability is important and so he chooses to also play a Fujikura Ventus Blue 6X driver shaft.
As we head into the winter it will be interesting to see which of these superb drivers of the ball start tinkering with new models or shafts in order to find marginal gains, or will they stick with what has already given them high levels of performance. Only time will tell.
