Golfing News & Blog Articles

We’re only one week away from the Masters.

You know what that means—we’re all Masters all the time here at MGS.

One of the many charming parts of the Masters is the tournament’s illustrious history. The great champions are revered; the storybook endings are celebrated for as long as golf is played.

Included in that lore are all the Masters winners we never saw coming. These are the guys who caught lightning in a bottle and, against all odds, took down top competition to don the green jacket.

When putting together this list, I realized there is an argument to be made for the two most famous Masters tournaments in history: 1986 (Jack Nicklaus) and 2019 (Tiger Woods).

Golfers have a language all their own. If you’ve spent time around the game, you’ve probably heard someone mention a “scratch golfer.” What does that mean? Is it just a fancy way of saying someone’s good at golf or is there more to it? If you’ve ever wondered what a scratch golfer is, whether it’s something worth aiming for or how hard it is to get there, we’ll break it down. And if you need a refresher on other common golf terms, we’ve got that, too.

What is a scratch golfer?

A “scratch golfer” is commonly accepted as someone with a 0.0 handicap index. The handicap index reflects a golfer’s potential ability, adjusted for the difficulty of the courses they play.

Each golf course has a course rating that estimates what a scratch golfer is expected to shoot under normal conditions.

When scratch players shoot even par on a course rated 72.0, they play exactly to their handicap. On a tougher course rated 74.2, that same scratch golfer could shoot 74 and still play to their 0.0 index.

Understanding the handicap index fluctuations

Handicap indexes don’t stay the same. Under the World Handicap System, your index is calculated using the lowest eight differentials from your last 20 rounds, reflecting your potential, not just your average.

You knew it was just a matter of time.

Titleist and Arccos are announcing today that they’re entering into a global partnership agreement. The arrangement makes Titleist the fifth major OEM to officially partner with Arccos, joining COBRA, PING, TaylorMade and Srixon-Cleveland.

Titleist will drive the partnership through Team Titleist, its customer loyalty program. Team Titleist members will be able to access data-driven insights and other benefits from Arccos, including a free set of Arccos sensors and a 45-day free trial Arccos membership.

“The partnership with Arccos expands our commitment to excellence by delivering AI-powered game-tracking and data-driven strategy at the highest level,” Titleist Brand Management and Communications VP Mike Lowe said in a prepared statement.

Why are Titleist and Arccos partnering?

The obvious answer to that question is, simply, why not? Arccos, along with Shot Scope, are the industry standards for shot and data tracking. Additionally, Arccos Caddie may be the most robust and data-driven on-course strategy package in golf.

Already have a guess which two brands dominate the bags of the world’s top golfers? If you said Titleist and TaylorMade, you’re right. When we looked across every club in the bags of the top 10 players in the world, no other brand came close in terms of representation.

Who has what in their bag?

Here’s a look at the presence of Titleist and TaylorMade golf clubs in the golf bags of the top 10 players in the world as of March 2025. Titleist and TaylorMade are tied with seven out of those 10 players carrying at least one of their clubs.

Golfer	Titleist	TaylorMade
Scottie Scheffler	(Wedges)	(Driver, 3W, Irons, Putter)
Rory McIlroy		(Full bag)
Xander Schauffele	(Wedges)
Collin Morikawa		(Full bag)
Ludvig Åberg	(Driver, Irons, Wedges)	(3W, 7W)
Hideki Matsuyama		(3W)
Russell Henley	(Driver, Irons, Wedges, Putter)
Viktor Hovland	(Irons, Wedges, Putter)	(3W)
Justin Thomas	(Driver, Irons, Wedges, Putter)
Tommy Fleetwood	(60° Wedge)	(Driver, Woods, Irons, 52° Wedge, Putter)

TaylorMade dominates in the driver and woods category

Some of the biggest players in the game trust TaylorMade drivers and fairway woods. Of the top five, only Xander Schauffele is not using a TaylorMade driver or wood. Interestingly, players like Aberg have chosen to hold on to older TaylorMade Stealth 2 models because of the consistent performance.

While we have yet to finish testing fairway woods, in the 2025 driver test for amateur players, the Titleist drivers performed much better than the new TaylorMade Qi35 drivers. We’ve even seen some professionals like Rory McIlroy move back to the Qi10 after switching to the Qi35.

Titleist owns the wedge category

The Titleist Vokey wedges are seen in seven of these 10 players’ bags. Even Tommy Fleetwood, who is not otherwise a Titleist guy, has a 60-degree Vokey in his bag. If you include Titleist golf balls in this table, you can add a green check for Hideki Matsuyama.

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