NEWS FROM THE TOUR VANS
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The newest kids on the block are the PGA Tour University graduating class of Luke Clanton, David Ford and Gordon Sargent. The trio made their professional debuts earlier in June at the RBC Canadian Open, missing the cut in lockstep at 1-under par. They were all back in the field together in Detroit at the Rocket Classic.
Clanton gave up his No. 1 amateur ranking and senior year at Florida State to take up his tour card that he helped secure with a handful of top-10 PGA Tour finishes that proved his readiness to accept the fast-track opportunity provided by PGA Tour U’s accelerated pathway. A brutal Saturday 77 cost him another top-10 and left him T60 in Detroit.
Clanton entrusts his equipment setup to professional fitters, and carries a mixed tour bag. While he games a Titleist TSr2 driver, Scotty Cameron Phantom 9 Prototype putter and Pro V1 ball, the rest of his clubs are TaylorMade: BRNR Mini Driver (13.5 degrees); Stealth UDI driving iron; P770 (3), P760 (4-6) and P7MB (7-9) irons; and MG4 wedges (46, 50, 54 and 58 degrees).
Ford, who topped the final 2025 PGA Tour U standings after finishing his senior season at North Carolina, is all-in on team Titleist. He goes into deep detail on a Titleist “what’s in the bag” video. Ford missed the cut at the Rocket.
Unlike Clanton, Ford adopted the latest generation GT2 driver as well as GT3 3-wood and 5-wood.
“I went from the TSR2 to the GT2, I noticed how straight I went on mis-hits, and when I thought they were going right or left, they’d be way straighter than they were in the past,” Ford said. “So yeah, more ball speed, but also improved accuracy.”
The rest of Ford’s bag has served him well through his entire college career. He has played the same combination set of Titleist 620 CB (3-6) and 620 MB (7-9) irons for about five years. “I’ve stuck with them for a while now,” he said. “I do spin it a little bit more than the average player, and I like that spin to keep the ball straight. A lot of control with these things, and I’ve loved them.”
He rounds out his bag with Vokey SM10 wedges (46, 50, 54 and 60 degrees) and a “dinged up” Scotty Cameron Timeless Tour Prototype putter.
“For about [five or six] years now, I’ve had the same grind, the same loft, the same bounce, the same everything in these clubs for a while," Ford said of his wedges.
As for his Scotty Cameron: “I like how soft it is. I haven’t really known anything else, but I really like how it feels off the face, especially with the [2025] Pro V1 ball. So yeah, this putter has been awesome with the ball I play, and it puts a really good roll on it.”
Sargent was the first of the trio to earn his tour card via the accelerated program in late 2023, but he deferred turning pro for a year to finish college at Vanderbilt. The wait didn’t necessarily serve his game well, as his form slipped from being the NCAA individual champion as a freshman in 2022 and the No. 1 amateur for 41 weeks in 2023 and ’24. He made his first professional cut in Detroit, finishing T67.
“I committed to play four years of golf there. That’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to get my degree, spend time with some teammates and try to get better at golf,” Sargent said in Canada. “It was definitely kind of a roller-coaster [senior] year. Didn’t go exactly how I planned or expected it to, but I feel like it prepared me for the future. Yeah, just going to lean on those experiences, whether good or bad, and see how I can learn from them.”
Sargent signed an NIL deal with Titleist while at Vandy and he used the same setup when he debuted in Canada as a brand ambassador – only switching from a carry bag to a Titleist tour bag with a 9-degree GT2 driver, T200 (3), T100 (4) and 620 MB (5-9) irons, newly fitted Vokey SM10 wedges and a Scotty Cameron TourType Timeless GSS 350 Tour Prototype putter.
Scott Michaux