To give you some perspective on the changes in golf equipment since Tiger Woods won his first PGA Tour event, the 1996 Las Vegas Invitational, consider this: Woods’ opponent in the playoff that week, Davis Love, used a persimmon driver.
Now that Tiger has won his 82nd PGA Tour event, the Zozo Championship in Japan, it’s the perfect time to look back on how his gear has evolved, and in many ways how it has stayed the same, since he turned pro.
The early years
Before he turned pro, Tiger used clubs from a variety of manufacturers. At the 1996 U.S. Amateur, where Woods won his third title, he used Titleist woods, a blended set of Mizuno irons, Cleveland wedges and a Ping Anser putter. Woods split his irons and used clubs from two different sets to create a blended set because he wanted as little offset as possible, and within the Mizuno family at that time, the combination provided him with the look and the performance he wanted.
Like other elite golfers at that time, Wood also played a wound ball, the Titleist Professional 90.
Before the 1997 Masters rolled around, Woods made two substantive equipment changes. He added a King Cobra Deep Face driver and a Scotty Cameron Newport Tel3 putter.
The driver was made from 17-4 stainless steel, a material that is commonly used in fairway woods and irons today because it is strong. However, it is also much heavier than the titanium found in modern drivers. At that point, Woods was also playing a steel shaft in his driver, a True Temper Dynamic Gold X100 steel shaft.
The putter had a dark finish, white dots on the back and a copper-toned insert designed to create a softer feel at impact.
That putter was eventually benched in favor of a Scotty Cameron Newport 2 GSS, a silver-toned putter that Tiger would use throughout the next two decades.
