SURVEY RESULTS: What’s In The Bag (Part 1)

Last month, we asked you to take our What’s in the Bag survey. Here’s a first look at some of the insights we gathered from your answers.

In Part One, we’re taking a broad look at what clubs our survey takers had in their bags, not by brand (at least not yet) but by club type.

Drivers

Observations

• Right off the bat, 93.63 percent of those who answered the survey carry one driver. No surprise there. We’d say that’s …  pretty normal. It’s also not completely abnormal that 1.49 percent don’t carry a driver at all. Those that don’t bag drivers likely struggle to keep their driver in play. It’s a guess but a pretty solid one.
• The 1.79 percent who said they carry two drivers probably have a standard driver and a par-3 or “keep it in play” driver.
• Out of curiosity, we’d love to hear if you carry more than two drivers. Why? Who hurt you? Are you trying to pick your favorite? One for rain, one for sun? What is it?
• It’s also worth mentioning that  2.09 percent of survey responders carry a mini driver.

Fairway Woods

Observations

• As we mentioned above, more than 93 percent of respondents play at least one driver. When we dive into fairway woods, the results are a bit more varied.
• The 3-wood is the most popular among those who have at least one fairway wood in their bag. Seventy percent of those who carry a fairway wood have a standard (14.5- 15-degree) 3-wood in their bag. The 5-wood is the next most popular.
• The 7-wood is carried by 13.23 percent of golfers who have at least one fairway wood in their bag. That number will likely increase in the coming years.
• High-lofted 11-woods are offered by only a few brands and, not surprisingly, are a rare find in your golf bags.

Hybrids

Observations

• Seventy-six percent of respondents said they carry at least one hybrid. The 4-hybrid is most often used, followed by the 3.
• Of the golfers who carry at least one hybrid, almost 21 percent of them carry a 5-hybrid. This was an interesting little nugget. We weren’t expecting it to be that high.
• There was nothing remarkable to note about the higher-lofted hybrids. Higher lofts fall off dramatically after the 5.

Utility Irons

Observations

• Just over 20 percent of golfers who took the survey carry at least one utility iron. That’s less than one-third of golfers who carry at least one hybrid.
• While higher-lofted hybrids weren’t as popular, higher-lofted utility irons fared better. The 2 was the most popular utility iron and 3 followed right behind.
• There are some who are still determined to carry a 1-utility iron. Thanks, Titleist.

Irons

Observations

• The 4-PW is the most popular set configuration among our survey takers, accounting for nearly 30 percent of all sets. The 5-PW comes in second.
• The 6-GW is more popular than the once-standard 3-PW and that’s likely because no one makes a 3-iron anymore.

Wedges

Observations

Last, but not least, wedges. Not everyone carries a pitching wedge. We suppose that’s a little surprising. But nearly everyone who does carry a pitching wedge plays a set-matched pitching wedge

• The sand wedge is a bit more popular than the gap wedge among our survey takers. That may change in the coming years as the gap wedge is becoming a necessity with increasingly stronger lofts.
• Just under 60 percent of your gap wedges are set-matched, meaning nearly 40 percent are opting for something like a Vokey, Callaway JAWS, MG3, etc.
• Only 82.23 percent of golfers carry a lob wedge. We say “only” because, even though that’s still a high number, it’s the only wedge type where usage rates are sub-90 percent
• Sand and lob wedge lofts skew heavily towards specialty wedges with only a single-digit percentage of golfers choosing set-matched versions. Folks … at SW and LW lofts, almost nobody is milling grooves in their set-matched wedges. You should almost certainly be playing something else.

Stay Tuned. In the next coming weeks, we’ll dig deeper in your bag to better understand what’s in it.