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Jordan Spieth’s annual opportunity to complete the career Grand Slam returns this week at the PGA Championship at Aronimink Golf Club near Philadelphia. His return to the top 50 in the world ranking comes on the heels of some substantial changes to his equipment setup.
Spieth started fast in the recent Cadillac Championship at the famed Blue Monster in Doral, Florida, firing an opening 65 (his lowest opening score since 2023) to hang within a shot of eventual wire-to-wire winner Cameron Young. A Saturday 75 killed any hope of Spieth notching his first victory since the 2022 RBC Heritage, but his T18 finish was good enough to hang onto his No. 50 world ranking after starting the year ranked 80th.
The 32-year-old Texan took on Doral sporting a new driver and 3-wood, trading in his Titleist TSR2 driver and cracked TSR3 3-wood for the newest Titleist GTS2 models in each. More significantly, however, Spieth put a new ball into play, swapping out his Titleist Pro V1x for the lower-spinning Pro V1x Left Dash.
“I’m really excited about all three changes,” Spieth said at Doral.
Jordan Spieth switches his driver and 3-wood to Titleist’s new GTS2 models.
michael Pimentel, ISI Photos via Getty Images
The midseason ball change, Spieth said, “would be extremely rare.” He did switch from the 2021 Pro V1x to the 2025 model during the Florida Swing last year, but those balls had similar characteristics.
“This is a little bit bigger jump, but I hit enough shots to feel confident that it was better for me than what I was playing,” Spieth said.
Spieth makes a midseason switch to the lower-spinning Titleist Pro V1x Left Dash ball.
Orlando Ramirez, Getty Images
“It’s just a lower-spinning ball with the same height. I’ve always played the highest-spinning ball because I thought I needed it in the long irons. Now with whatever my makeup is – and then just kind of added speed – my spin rates have been fine if not too high. So it’s actually kind of nice to be able to drop it down a little bit.”
Spieth explained that he’s been spinning the ball a lot in the last 18 months or so and thought it was “a driving range thing.” But after taking the launch monitor out on the course with him before the RBC Heritage, he realized too many shots “came off just odd for an iron, spinny, ended up short.”
“I had a couple shots cost me what I thought were perfect shots,” he said. “Occasionally the first few you’re going to think, ‘Oh, it’s coincidental; there’s a wind or something like that.’ But it was enough of a sample size to say let me explore other options. I had caved a 3-wood in Tampa, so I was on the hunt for a 3-wood anyways. Then when the new driver came out, I just kind of hit it some at home and then I did a lot once we had a week off and I was like, ‘Man, this thing’s awesome.’”
Since the new GTS woods have a different head shape than his older TSRs, Spieth matched the shaft in his 3-wood to that of his driver. While he has no qualms about his new fairway wood, he’s not as certain about the driver.
“I’m not sure if that’s a winner yet,” Spieth said. “It’s kind of a trial run. I didn’t hit it great [Thursday at Doral] so I’m going to go hit a few on the range and continue to fall in love with it.”
Titleist’s GTS launch continued last week with the debut of the new GTS300 mini driver on the PGA Tour. The GTS300’s final design was influenced by feedback from Young and Justin Thomas.
Scott Michaux
