Ryder Cup 2025: One equipment nugget from every member of the U.S. team

The Ryder Cup isn’t subject to quite as much equipment intrigue these days now that the conundrum of which golf ball a two-man team uses in alternate-shot matches no longer exists (players can switch balls on each hole) and with Phil Mickelson not playing. Still, there plenty of curiosity regarding the bats and balls of those who are competing in the matches. Ahead of this week's action at Bethpage Black, we pulled one item of interest from each player on the U.S. squad. Enjoy.

Sam Burns

See the red line running down the back of Sam Burns’ Golf Pride Tour Velvet Align grip? It’s not some custom color pop or vanity play—it serves a valuable purpose. The red, raised stripe is a built-in “reminder” ridge designed to help return your hands to the same position every time you grip the club. The ridge on Burns’ handle features a firmer micro-diamond pattern that’s much easier to feel at address, especially if you're gripping down or playing in wet conditions. Burns is one of several pros who’ve made the switch to Align over the years, preferring the built-in consistency without the hassle of modifying grips behind the scenes. It’s a subtle addition, but at this level, subtle can mean everything.

Patrick Cantlay

Most PGA Tour players are prone to tinkering with their sticks. Not Patrick Cantlay. The 2021 FedEx Cup champion switched to Titleist’s GT2 driver ahead of the 2024 U.S. Open at Pinehurst, when he settled on a 10-degree head with a Mitsubishi Diamana ZF 60 TX shaft. He also put the adjustable hosel in the D1 setting, which drops the loft to 9.25 degrees while keeping the lie angle standard. He has not touched it since.

Bryson DeChambeau

So much to choose from, but you gotta love a guy who once bemoaned “This driver sucks!” then helped design his own. That’s Bryson DeChambeau and his LA Golf Face ID driver. The deal behind it is that DeChambeau discovered modern high COR drivers have a bulge radius of between 11 and 13.5 inches. At his high ball speed, a toe shot had too much gear effect and ended up in the left rough. He also found that heel shots were ending up in the right rough. A more bulbous face geometry with a bulge radius of eight inches corrected the gear effect issue, resulting in more fairways being hit. The Golf Scientist indeed.

Harris English

Any given week on the PGA Tour, the practice putting green is surrounded by half a dozen or more staff bags brimming with putters for players to try. One player rarely seen checking out the wares is Harris English. He has used the same Ping Scottsdale HoHum mallet since his senior year of college in 2011. The putter, originally earmarked for Georgia teammate Keith Mitchell, is 36¼ inches with 3 degrees of loft. The grip is a Ping Winn AVS Palmlock, which is almost never truly new. Says English: “I like my grips to be a little worn. New grips feel slick, especially when my hands sweat. I’ll have the Ping guys sand a new grip down to make it feel a little worn.” The grip has put traction on English’s career, too, as it has been used for all five of his PGA Tour wins.

Ben Griffin

Ben Griffin won his first two career PGA Tour titles this year with a Maxfli Tour X ball, the first wins on the tour by a Maxfli ball in more than 20 years. Griffin was hesitant to play the ball at first but made the jump. “I just didn't have very high expectations, probably the lowest expectation out of all of the brands,” he said. “Yet after testing it, I came to realize that not only was it the longest ball, but it had most similar spin profile to what I had been playing. I played a bunch of rounds with it. I noticed immediately off the tee it was flying straighter, too. There were a lot of questions from the other guys—like, why are you doing this, you know, the golf ball is the most important piece of equipment in your bag. You're using it on every single shot. How are you going to take that risk? I was like, 'trust me, it's a calculated risk. I've done my due diligence, and I know this is going to be best for my golf game,' and I immediately had success with it.”

Russell Henley

Russell Henley’s Titleist Vokey wedge setup is not unique, but it is worth paying attention to. For starters, his pitching wedge matches the rest of his wedges, not his irons, but perhaps of greater note is the division of labor. The 48- and 50-degree clubs (bent to 47 and 51 degrees) are full-swing clubs and employ a lower-bounce grind to speed through the turf while the higher lofts are for sand and greenside work and employ higher bounce for more versatility.

Collin Morikawa

Collin Morikawa’s putting wasn’t exactly Ryder Cup caliber this season; he ranked 141st in strokes gained/putting going into the Procore Championship. That prompted the two-time major winner to make a change from the TaylorMade TP Soto he’s primarily used this season to a center-shafted TaylorMade Spider V mallet. Fingers crossed.

Xander Schauffele

It probably won’t shock anyone that the longest-tenured club in Xander Schauffele’s bag also happens to be his favorite. Callaway’s Apex UW—short for “utility wood”—first hit shelves in 2021, and it’s been a fixture for Schauffele ever since. The UW delivers a high launch, consistent spin and a noticeably neutral flight. But Schauffele doesn’t play it straight off the rack. Thanks to a steeper-than-average angle of attack, he tweaks the loft down from the standard 21 degrees to 19. It’s a move that might raise eyebrows for most players, since less loft usually equals more distance. But in Xander’s case, it’s a strategic counter to spin—he naturally adds more of it with the descending delivery, so cranking down the loft helps keep the carry number in a suitable range. Another subtle tweak: he plays it at 41.5 inches, just a tick shorter than your typical 5-wood.

J.J. Spaun

J.J. Spaun is a Cleveland/Srixon staffer, but most of his sticks are standard issue—except for his L.A.B. Golf DF3 putter, that is. A club that has been sarcastically described as a potato masher or a spaceship, the oversize mallet was a drastic departure for Spaun, who had used a blade most of his career. “I had difficulty getting comfortable with a traditional mallet and just picked up one of the L.A.B putters at the Charles Schwab back in May of 2024,” Spaun said. “I kind of liked it, so I had one built up, and I just had it at home. I finally gave it some time in the offseason and really learned to like it and understand my tendencies with it, but the biggest thing that I've noticed with that putter is no matter where you hit it on the face, it carries the speed that you're intending to have.” Like on a 60-footer to close out a U.S. Open victory.

Scottie Scheffler

The No. 1 player in the world uses a custom Qi10 “Dot” version of TaylorMade’s Qi10 driver—a tour-only option with lower spin rates in the standard head profile—and pairs it with a Fujikura Ventus Black 7X shaft. Interestingly, he uses no “hot melt” inside the head to adjust sound or weight. “He wants zero hot melt in the head,” TaylorMade tour rep Adrian Rietveld recently told Golf Digest. “Zero. It's nice to have a fraction of hot melt in the head because it does catch bits of debris in the internal cavity as the club's going through its lifespan. But yeah, there's no hot melt that I know of. He's got a good view on it, right? If [the head] can't be replicated, he doesn't want it.”

Justin Thomas

The irons Justin Thomas employs, a one-off 621.JT Forged model, is interesting enough by itself. Yet as the old informercials used to say, “But wait, there’s more …” As it turns out, Thomas uses irons with no offset and has for some time. “Ever since I saw a set about 10 years ago, I’ve loved the look at address of them. The clean look from the shaft down to the hosel is just awesome. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to use an iron with offset again. They just look so nice.”

Cameron Young

It’s all about the lines on Cameron Young’s Titleist Pro V1 X Double Dot golf ball. “I go back and forth whether I'm using the line to putt, and I've had short stints of trying other colors,” Young told Titleist. “If the ball just will not go in the hole … I've tried blue, I've tried green for a week or two here and there, but I always come back to black. The line on my putter is black and so I just always come back to a black line, and you know, lining those two up and hitting a putt.” The line serves another purpose, too. “I’ll put it on whichever side I'm working it away from, like when I go to hit a draw, I put the line on the outside. Same thing when I putt. When I get a right-to-left putt, I'll put the big black stripe on the outside, kind of on the high side. For whatever reason, it's just how it makes sense in my head to look down at it.”