What's In the Bag: Drivers Used By Top 10 Players in SI World Golf Rankings

Three different manufacturers are represented in the bags of the current SIWGR top 10.

The first major is right around the corner, with the Masters in just two weeks. Big hitters off the tee have a clear advantage at Augusta National, but long and offline isn’t exactly a winning formula either among the Georgia pines. With that in mind, we felt it was appropriate to take a look at the top 10 golfers in the latest Sports Illustrated World Golf Rankings to see what they will be pulling out of their bags in early April.

Drivers Used by Top 10 Players in SI World Golf Rankings

1. Scottie Scheffler

TaylorMade Stealth 2 Plus

The 2022 PGA Tour player of the year now has a multiyear contract with TaylorMade after a few years as an equipment free agent. The 6-foot-3 defending Masters champion placed its new Stealth 2 Plus driver into play in January. Scheffler has tinkered some with the head weight recently but remains in the top 25 on the PGA Tour in driving distance at 308 yards off the tee. “The testing process of getting into a new driver was pretty simple for me,” he said. “What I noticed and was excited about was how stable it was, so getting into it was pretty seamless.”

The sliding weight track of this new TaylorMade driver includes a single 15-gram weight that can be positioned for a preferred shot shape, while the loft sleeve is used to optimize launch and trajectory. TaylorMade has gradually increased the usage of carbon over the last five years and when compared to first generation Stealth there is a 75 percent increase in carbon in Stealth 2 Plus.

2. Jon Rahm

Callaway Paradym Triple Diamond

The 28-year-old Rahm started 2023 by implementing the new Callaway Paradym Triple Diamond driver in Hawaii and proceeded to win three of his first five starts to become the first player since Johnny Miller in 1975 to win three times before March 1. The Paradym driver features something entirely new—a 100% carbon fiber chassis. It weighs 44 percent less than titanium, allowing Callaway to apply additional mass lower and deeper in the club head to create more forgiveness.

“I've loved every single driver I've had from Callaway. It's the strongest part of my game,” Rahm said. “But this Paradym driver is a different look to what Callaway's done in the past, and I can't help myself but to talk about how good it feels at impact. I don't know what the hell they have done, but it feels amazing.” Averaging 314 yards off the tee so far this season, Rahm finished fifth in driving distance at last year’s Masters.

3. Rory McIlroy

TaylorMade Stealth 2 Plus

The four-time major champion has taken his driving distance to yet another level in the 2022-23 season, averaging a PGA Tour-best 326.6 yards off the tee—more than five years farther than second-place Brandon Matthews and 11 yards more than third-place Cameron Young.

Eric Gay/AP

McIlroy is in the first year of a new contract with TaylorMade, and while he started the 2023 season with the Stealth Plus driver that he’d enjoyed so much success with, he switched into the brand’s Stealth 2 Plus during the Genesis Invitational. “I feel like this Stealth 2 head for me has just got a little more spin on it, but at a more neutral or what I perceive to be a more neutral face angle,” he said. “I think if other people saw it they would probably see that it sits slightly open, but to my eye it sits square. To me it was all about face angle.” McIlroy spent back-to-back seasons atop the PGA Tour’s long-drive category in 2017 (317.2) and 2018 (319.7), and was second last year at 321.3.

4. Patrick Cantlay

Titleist TS3

With all the new technology out in the last five years it’s remarkable to think that Cantlay is still using a Titleist TS3 driver that was released in 2018. The TS3 driver offers an adjustable sweet spot for speed-tuned performance. Cantlay did some tinkering in the offseason as a club free agent, but remained close to the vest.

“In general I'm not a big tester. But if something's better or potentially better, I'm now in a position where I can go out and put that in right away. That's exciting,” he said in early March. “I really have only done some shaft changes this year. I experimented with some stuff and I thought maybe going heavier in everything would help me hit it a little straighter. But I have just been swinging the golf club a little bit faster lately and that's by design. It's important to try and hit it farther these days. It's just the simplest, fastest way to get a little better.” Cantlay is in the top 30 on the PGA Tour in both driving distance and accuracy.

5. Max Homa

Titleist TSR3

The six-time PGA Tour winner uses a Titleist TSR3 driver with 10 degrees of loft. He is 67th in driving distance on Tour and 51st in accuracy, but is second in par-3 scoring, third in strokes gained and ninth in putting. His driving stats in 2021-22 were also middle of the road. “I believe that I'm going to play well because I have played great,” Homa said of his 2023 start. “But I believe that if, by some lightning rod of bad luck, I play terrible one week I'm not going to go home and re-invent the wheel. And that's quite comforting because before when I came to big events I struggled in majors by putting too much pressure on myself, saying ‘O.K., this is how I need to test myself and prove myself.”’

6. Will Zalatoris

Titleist TSR3

One of the most exciting players on the PGA Tour, Zalatoris headed into 2023 coming off a major back injury, so with that came a few swing changes. One equipment change centered around his Titleist TSR3 driver, in which he shortened his shaft to 45.75 inches. At 46 inches, Zalatoris boasted one of the longer driver builds on the PGA Tour last season.

Reinhold Matay/USA TODAY Sports

“It just helps with turning around the corner a little bit,” Zalatoris said of the shorter shaft. “Having the longer lever makes a wider arc and gives me a little bit more time to bring shots back to on line. I actually have the exact same speed, so eventually once I go back to the 46, I'll actually be net up speed.” Still, Zalatoris is averaging 307.2 yards off the tee, good for 31st on Tour.

7. Xander Schauffele

Callaway Paradym Triple Diamond

Schauffele’s Callaway Paradym Triple Diamond driver is truly custom—that’s because his has nine custom white lines on the face, drawn with a Sharpie marker. It’s a visual thing, according to the seven-time Tour winner, saying the driver’s dark face and gray lines don’t appeal to his setup routine on the tee. Who’s to argue since Schauffele topped the PGA Tour last year in par-4 scoring, meaning his control off the tee is impeccable. “The fairway is obviously where everyone's eyes goes, but if you kind of frame a certain hole a certain way based on how you hit it and how you're hitting it, you can kind of give yourself a bigger advantage on a hole to certain pin locations,” he said.

8. Cameron Smith

Titleist TSR3

The only LIV Tour player in the SIWGR top 10, Smith uses a 10-degree Titleist TSR3 driver. “Off the tee is probably where I struggle the most in my game,” Smith said. The defending British Open champion was 135th on the PGA Tour in driving accuracy last year before heading to play LIV golf.

9. Justin Thomas

Titleist TSi3

The 15-time Tour winner uses a Titleist TSi3 off the tee, and he's been pretty erratic with his driver over the last two seasons. This year, he’s 135th in driving accuracy and two years ago was 169th. Thomas had a top-10 finish in the 2022 Masters and needs to step up his driving to stay in contention again. “I think it's very clear, I'm very hard on myself,” Thomas said. “But I'm also one of those people that doesn't really like it if people complain about something that they can control. And if I'm not driving it well, I can look back and say, ‘Well, I hit drivers for five minutes (on the practice range) last week.’ Like that's nobody's fault but my own.”

10. Kurt Kitayama

TaylorMade Stealth 2 Plus

There is not a large sample size here for the 5-foot-7, 170-pounder who has played in just 51 career PGA Tour events. But he’s apparently a risk-taker. Kitayama started the season with a TaylorMade Stealth 2 standard head driver, but the week of the Arnold Palmer Invitational he switched to a TaylorMade Stealth 2 Plus with a slight lie angle change, along with a shorter and less stiff shaft. The result? His first Tour win.