As the PGA Tour heads to the flagship event, The Players Championship, where better to start the first Tour Report of the season? We’re back with a complete rundown of gear and news stories seen at TPC Sawgrass, and we’ll continue to do this franchise throughout the year as the Tour makes it’s way from course to course and golfers continue to test and tinker with their setups.

Also, if you haven’t already, take some time to sit down and watch the first “Inside the Ropes” episode from The Players live on the GolfWRX YouTube page. You’ll also find it in the forums.

Anyway, let’s take a look at what happened in Northeast Florida ahead of The Players.

Wyndham Clark supports his local pro shop

With all the offerings pros have on-site at Tour events, trucks, reps, gadgets, and gizmos, Wyndham Clark went with a putter he pulled off the rack at his local pro shop.

“I hadn’t been putting my best, so I wanted to try some different putters, and I kind of narrowed it down to two or three, and I went to go put lead tape on one of them at the pro shop at Whisper Rock,” Clark told GolfWRX at The Players. “As I was kind of waiting there and looking, they had this putter and I said, ‘You know, can I try this?’

The shop-bought Bettinardi Antidote SB1 is one of many putters that Clark has tested over the last season or so, toiling with L.A.B.s, Jailbirds, unreleased Toulons, and Scotty Camerons.

Even if we hadn’t asked Clark about the Bettinardi backstory, it would be easy to tell that the putter came from retail – it still has the price sticker on it – but he’s had it long enough to slather the sole in lead tape and equipped it with a SuperStroke 2.0 PT grip.

The putter wasn’t the only switch for the 2023 U.S. Open champion before he teed it up at Sawgrass. He’s a newly establish equipment-free-agent, so Clark decided to add TaylorMade’s Qi4D driver into the lineup.

“It’s really nice to be able to basically hand-pick all 14 clubs versus being locked into having to play some, and sometimes there’s a lot of great club companies, but maybe they don’t make 14 great clubs, they might make 10 or 11,” Clark said on the free-agency.

Clark’s new Qi4D core model, at 10.5 degrees cranked a few notches lower, is shafted with Project X’s new Titan at 70 grams.

Read the full story here.

Maverick McNealy brings back the blade

The old saying, “absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

For Maverick McNealy, it helped him to the overnight lead Thursday at The Players.

He benched his Odyssey Toulon Prototype Santa Monica blade for a one-week experiment with a TaylorMade Spider Tour X at Riviera on the West Coast, but now he’s back with the blade and performing well with it at Sawgrass.

Currently, the Spider is in the hands of 25 golfers at The Players, and world Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4, but for McNealy, the mallet couldn’t match the muscle memory, and more importantly, the feel of the blade.

“The sound of this Toulon, for whatever reason, it just matches perfectly with my ear with the speed I’m trying to hit,” McNealy said on why the Toulon trumped the Spider. “… the slightly louder sound has helped with faster greens.”

Check out the full backstory about McNealy’s blade, one that was rejected by a certain Japanese superstar.

Aldrich Potgieter’s complete bag overhaul

The curious case of 14 club fever has hit the current PGA Tour Rookie of the Year.

Since winning for the first time on the Tour and in just nine months, Aldrich Potgieter has changed every club in his golf bag after his most-recent swap at The Players.

The big-hitting South African, who signed with PXG in the offseason, traded his Scotty Cameron 009M Tour Prototype for L.A.B.’s new Link 2.1 HS blade.

Potgieter, 21, who led the Tour in driving distance last season, has struggled with the flatstick this season, ranking 128th in SG: Putting. The Link 2.1 HS blade adopts L.A.B.’s new riser hosel developed originally in the OZ.1i HS lineup. Potgieter opted for a Diamana L.A.B. Putter Series shaft and what looks like a Grip Master Cabretta grip.

Take a look at his bag to start the season (minus the new L.A.B.)

Sungjae Im finally switches

Sungjae Im doesn’t change things often. But not starting his 2026 season, after some time away from the game to rehab a wrist injury, the South Korean is sporting a new look and new irons.

Im who had been using the 2019 version of Titliest’s T-Series T100 irons, transitioned into the 2025 T150s at Sawgrass.

“The Korean team did a great job at finding a model that hit all the things that he really liked about his older irons. Heel toe length, sole, things like that in a brand new product in T150. So, in talking to him, performance gain, maintain the look and feel that he really liked and that’s a win-win,” Titliest Tour Rep Nick Geyer told GolfWRX at Sawgrass. “He was in the first-gen T100. So a little bit larger heel to toe, a little bit larger sole typically. The 150 kind of hitting those marks, 100 to 100. I think the new T100 would probably look small to him. And I think that’s why he ended up going 150 again, from just a visual perspective. And then the added benefit of height, speed, all the kind of gains.”

Our Andrew Von Lossow couldn’t help but comment on Im’s irons as they’ve been stuck with Titleist’s custom-printed lead tape.

“One of the best things” @avl_ltc with high praise for Sungjae Im pic.twitter.com/gHxYRRWxu3

— GolfWRX (@GolfWRX) March 13, 2026

Hear from Geyer about the switch in this week’s “Inside the Ropes” episode.

Quick hits

Justin Rose was walking around Sawgrass with two putters in the bag ahead of The Players. His usual Scotty Cameron Phantom T-5 Tour Prototype and a new Axis 1 prototype putter. The new design incorporates tungsten weights in the toe and heel sections of the face, most likely to achieve a torque-free stroke, and a single-bend shaft.

See what the Axis looks like thanks to Greg Moore’s eagle-eyed camera skills.

Justin Thomas, who made his long-awaited return to golf last week at Bay Hill after needing back surgery, did so with a 2018 Titliest TS3 driver. It didn’t last long; he was back in the GT2 for TPC Sawgrass. It’s not too surprising, though, Thomas still uses a Titleist TS3 3-wood. What is interesting, though, is that Thomas has moved into Golf Pride’s Tour Velvet Align technology. The grip features a rib alignment aid to help golfers with clubhead awareness.

Take a look at JT’s bag from Bay Hill, with both old and new driver in the bag.

Club of the week

Take a look at the custom Bettinardi made for Englishman Harry Hall. The Tour’s third-best putter last year, surprisingly switched out of his Odyssey O-Works #1 Wide for, you guessed it, a TaylorMade Spider at Bay Hill.