My 5 gear takeaways from 2025 and how you can use them in 2026

I’ve been playing golf for 20 years now, and yet I’m always amazed at how many new things I can learn.

This was my first full year on the mechanical beat as an Associate GOLF Gear Producer, so naturally, it was a year of lessons and “aha” moments.

Some were personal, like deciding what types of shafts best suited my swing or what grind to use on wedges, while others, like the ones below, apply to anyone.

Read on below for my top gear picks from 2025 and how they can help your game in 2026.

1. Going to the opposite place

We’ll start by going easy here because I mean this intuitively, not technically.

I always knew that modern convertible drivers are designed to be closed and add loft, which makes them draw. I also knew you could adjust your driver head to the other side and open it up, lower the club and make it fade.

Although my natural shooting position has always been a draw, over the past few years, I’ve played with my drivers a little wider. Turns out I have to!

You generally want to have your driver lean to the opposite side of your natural shooting position. The angle of the face will affect the initial line of the ball, so in the golf ball drive, you want to start the ball to the right (for a right-handed player) and then back it to the left.

The opposite is true for someone who wants to blunt the golf ball. They want to close the clubface so the ball starts to the left and comes back to the right.

You see this on the PGA Tour a lot with draw-hitters like Rory McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood, both of whom use high 9- and 10-degree driver heads and open them, while cutters like Collin Morikawa and Scottie Scheffler use low 8-degree heads and close the face to add height.

So while I was already opening the clubface to go, now I know why I liked it.

2. You never know how to react

If you add loft to the instrument, you can expect to launch it higher. But that is not true for me.

When I was getting ready for Titleist’s new 2025 T-Series irons, my matchmaker, Louis, found that when he took my irons from two degrees off the fairway, I actually launched the ball lower and more consistently.

This is a good example of how being introduced to a new device can make you react differently, whether you know it or not.

What I’ve learned is that when I’m presented with more loft — like the 35-degree 7-iron I’m playing now compared to the 32 degree I started the year with — I cover the ball better and come in with less consistent loft, which results in a lower launch, but a higher swing and higher elevation.

That’s pretty consistent for me too.

3. Shafts do not start and shafts do not spin

This one has been out for a while, but please ignore it any time you hear a salesperson say a shaft is “low-launch” or “high-spin” or anything of that nature.

I’m an elite player who was always given “low launch” shafts (like Ventus Black or Tensei White) to lower my ball flight and spin, but it actually had the opposite effect. For most of 2023 and 2024, I was playing with a driver with 7 degrees of loft to combat spin.

But when I suited up at TaylorMade for the first time, I was put on the Ventus TR Red, which is marketed as a “high launch” shaft, yet I brought my launch ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​front

My point is: The shafts may not control launch and rotation as they are sold. The shaft is a method of timing and everyone’s swing times a little differently.

The important thing is to find a shaft that goes up with your swing, not one that is marketed to achieve your favorite ball flight!

4. Young drivers have a purpose

I was skeptical of the mini driver when I first saw them come out, but then I started playing with the TaylorMade R7 Quad Mini driver this spring and saw some big benefits.

My little driver gives me a club that I can swing with driver forgiveness, but 3 wood distance.

Since I hit the ball enough, I rarely use a 3-wood from the deck, so the 3-wood/mini driver’s place in my bag is almost always a tee club. I can hit a mini off the deck, but that’s a rare use case.

At the end of the day, I prioritize external performance from this location in the bag and get it from a small driver.

5. Maybe the low torque putters are onto something

I wasn’t sure what to put here because I was a low-torque (or “zero-torque”) skeptic myself, but one closes the year in my bag, too.

Although I have never considered playing with a low torque putter, I learned that I am actually a very good candidate because I don’t have much rotation through the stroke.

I started messing around with low torque putters and decided on an experiment: I’ll use one until March and come back to see what it does to my putting stroke.

So far, the analysis I’ve done has shown me to be the most accurate putter with the low torque option in the bag – so I may not be off in March, though.