I buy my own gear. No paid links.
🏌️ My Bag · Updated 2026

What's In My Bag

This is the real thing. Not a wish list, not a sponsored setup, just the gear I carry as a 4.2 handicap who plays two to three times a week. For every item you get what it is, why I play it, how long I have had it, and the honest version of who should and should not buy it. Some slots are still blank because I am in the middle of testing, and I am not going to fill them in with something I do not actually own. If you want to know how I arrive at any of this, read how I test golf gear.

Irons

Titleist 620 MB

What it is: A full set of forged muscle-back blades. 4 through pitching wedge. No cavity, no perimeter weighting, no help.

Why I play them: Feedback. When I catch one out of the middle it feels like nothing at all, and when I miss it by a groove I know instantly and exactly where. That information makes me a better ball striker. I also flight them lower and work them both ways more easily than anything cavity-backed I have tried.

How long: Four seasons. Regripped twice, never thought about replacing them.

Honest take: Blades are not for everyone, and I mean that. If you are above about a 10 handicap these will punish you on every strike that is not centered, and you will lose real distance on the toe. You should play these if you hit the middle of the face most of the time, your miss is small, and you actually want to feel the bad ones. Almost everyone else scores better with a players cavity or a game improvement iron and should feel zero shame about it. Ego costs strokes.

🎯 Bought with my own money
Player's set
Golf Ball

Titleist Pro V1

What it is: The urethane-covered tour ball that everything else gets compared to.

Why I play it: Wedge spin and predictability. I know what a half wedge does when it lands and I know what it does into wind. With blades I need that consistency more than I need a couple of extra yards off the tee.

How long: Roughly ten years, with a few detours to try other tour balls. I always come back.

Honest take: This is the most overbought ball in golf. If your swing speed is modest or you lose more than a sleeve a round, you are paying premium money for spin you cannot generate and then hitting it into a pond. A soft two-piece ball at a third of the price is 90 percent as good for a lot of golfers. Play it if you have a short game that can use the spin.

Premium tier
GPS Watch

Garmin Approach S70

What it is: A full-color AMOLED golf GPS watch with hole maps, hazard distances, and virtual caddie yardages.

Why I play it: Glanceable numbers with no fiddling. Front, middle, back before I get to the ball, so I am already thinking about the shot instead of hunting for a sprinkler head. It also happens to be the watch I wear every single day, golf or not, because it does sleep, steps, and workouts well enough that I never take it off.

How long: About a year and a half. Battery still comfortably clears a weekend of golf.

Honest take: It is expensive, and a cheaper Garmin gives you the same yardages on a duller screen. The premium here is the display and the everyday-watch part. If you only want golf numbers and you already wear a watch you like, save a couple hundred and buy down the range. I am paying for the double duty.

Premium tier
Rangefinder

Bushnell Pro X3+

What it is: Bushnell's flagship laser. Fast pin lock with vibration, a slope switch you can flip off for tournaments, and very good glass.

Why I play it: It locks the flag first time, every time, including into trees and in poor light. That sounds small until you use a laser that does not. The slope switch means the same unit works for a Saturday game and a club competition.

How long: Two seasons. It has been rained on plenty and dropped on a cart path once. Fine.

Honest take: This is more laser than most golfers need. A good mid-priced unit with pin vibration and a slope switch does 90 percent of this job for less than half the money, and I say so in the rangefinder guide. I own the X3+ because I use it constantly for testing and I want the reference standard. Buy it if you play a lot and hate second-guessing a number.

Premium tier
Training Aid

SuperSpeed Golf Sticks

What it is: A three-club set of weighted and underweighted training sticks for overspeed swing training. You swing the light one fast to teach your body a new top speed.

Why I use it: It is the only training aid I own that produced a number I could measure. Three sessions a week, roughly fifteen minutes each, and my driver speed is up meaningfully from where it sat two years ago. It also doubles as a warmup before a round.

How long: Two and a half years, three times a week most weeks.

Honest take: It only works if you actually do the protocol. Most people buy these, use them for three weeks, and let them live in the garage. If you know you will not stick to a schedule, you are buying an expensive coat rack. Also, speed without contact is worthless, so this is not a fix for a 20 handicap who is topping it.

Mid tier
Training Aid

Orange Whip Trainer

What it is: A flexible shaft with a weighted orange ball on the end. Swing it and it forces you into sequence, because a bad transition makes it flop around embarrassingly.

Why I use it: Tempo. When my swing gets quick from the top, this is the fastest reset I have found. Twenty swings in the garden and the rhythm comes back. It is also the best pre-round warmup in my bag when there is no range.

How long: Six years. Same one. It has taken a beating and still works.

Honest take: This will not fix your slice and it will not add distance on its own. What it does is teach you what a smooth transition feels like, which is worth a lot to some golfers and nothing to golfers who already swing in rhythm. Try someone else's before you buy one.

Mid tier

Slots I Have Not Filled In Yet

Coming soon. I am not going to make something up.

There are four slots missing from this page: driver, fairway woods and hybrids, wedges, and putter. I am mid-testing on all of them and I do not have a verdict I would stand behind yet.

I could easily list whatever is in the bag today and collect. I am not doing that. When a club has cleared five rounds and I actually believe in it, it goes on this page with the same detail as everything above.

Driver. Coming soon. I am not going to make something up.

Fairway woods and hybrids. Coming soon. I am not going to make something up.

Wedges. Coming soon. I am not going to make something up.

Putter. Coming soon. I am not going to make something up.

One Note

Every item on this page is gear I bought and use. Nothing here was sent to me free. If that ever changes, the item will say so right in its own description, not in a footnote.

I buy my own gear. No paid links. Search the product name anywhere and buy it however you like. The recommendation is the same either way.

How Any Of This Gets Decided

Five rounds minimum, real weather, deliberate mishits, and a list of things I will not do.

How I Test Golf Gear →