What the Pros Play: Jon Rahm
It feels like Jon Rahm has been a force on the PGA Tour for decades, but the 27-year-old Spaniard is only starting his sixth full-time season. However, he has already reached No. 1 on the Official World Golf Ranking in that short time, won a major championship, defeated Tiger Woods in singles at a Ryder Cup, and been a part of a winning European team.
Early in his career, Rahm’s ultra-aggressive style earned him a reputation as a player who could shoot low scores (he led the PGA Tour in scoring average last season at 69.3) but sometimes allowed his passion to get the better of his judgment. Unfortunately for his opponents, those days appear to be over. Rahm still makes a lot of birdies, but he showed poise down the stretch at Torrey Pines last June in winning the U.S. Open and again winning the Mexico Open at Vidanta two weeks ago.
Heading into the second major of the season, the 2022 PGA Championship, Rahm is clearly one of the favorites. He is the best driver of the ball on tour this season, a fantastic iron player, has touch around the greens and putts well. In short, his game can win at any time, on any course, including at Southern Hills Country Club.
To get the most from his game, Rahm works closely with Callaway Golf to make sure his equipment is ideally suited to maximize his strengths, blending some new technologies with gear that he has been using since before he turned pro in 2016.
BALL: Callaway Chrome Soft X
Jon Rahm’s Callaway golf balls. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
When Rahm signed an endorsement deal with Callaway before the start of last season, the first piece of equipment that he dialed in was the golf ball. Callaway presented him with three options and let him get a feel for all of them: the Chrome Soft, Chrome Soft X and Chrome Soft X LS.
The Chrome Soft X is a four-piece ball with a dual mantle design and a cast urethane cover. It is designed to fly higher and has a firmer feel than the Chrome Soft, while also producing more spin off the tee and a higher launch than the Callaway Chrome Soft X LS.
Rahm started around the green and worked back to the tee, hitting chip shots and pitch shots, then irons and finally woods. He liked that he could chip and pitch the ball with extra control with the Chrome Soft X.
“He could hit these shots that would skip twice and then stop,” said Kellen Watson, Callaway’s PGA Tour performance representative who works closely with Rahm. “The ball he had been playing came out very straight, at the target, but he felt that he could move this ball, even on 20-yard shots, hitting left of the target and letting it spin right or right of the target and letting it spin left. He said that he’d never had that control before.”
In tournament rounds, Rahm plays 10s, his favorite number.
DRIVER: Callaway Rogue ST Triple Diamond LS (10.5 degrees), with Aldila Tour Green 75 TX shaft
Jon Rahm’s Callaway Rogue ST Triple Diamond driver. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
The Rogue ST Triple Diamond LS is a 450-cubic centimeter offering designed to create the lowest spin of the four Rogue ST drivers for 2022, while helping fast-swinging, elite golfers work the ball more easily.
Last season, Rahm used a Callaway Epic Speed driver with the same loft and shaft to win the U.S. Open, but he switched to one of the company’s newest models, the Rogue ST Triple Diamond LS, at the start of 2022.
Even before he was shown the new Rogue ST line, Watson knew that Rahm had no intention of changing the shaft in his driver. He has played the Aldila Tour Green 75 TX for several years and trusts it. He has a gamer shaft in his driver, and Watson said Callaway always has at least two back-ups for him.
Rahm’s Rogue ST Triple Diamond LS has a large carbon fiber crown. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
The shape and size of the Rogue ST Triple Diamond LS fit Rahm’s eyes best, and he likes the deep face design. The club is the tallest of the four Rogue ST drivers from the leading edge to the topline, which many elite golfers like.
Rahm hits up on the ball, creating a positive attack angle, but still plays a driver that has more lost than many people might think. The club has a stated loft of 10.5 degrees, but a very close measurement reveals the actual loft is 11.2 degrees. According to Watson, Rahm generates about 2,200 rpm of spin with his driver and ball speeds of about 185 mph. Last season his driving distance average was 309 yards, which ranked 19th on the PGA Tour, but heading into the PGA Championship, it is up to 316.7, which ranks third. Rahm is ranked No. 1 on the PGA Tour in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee (1.311).
FAIRWAY WOODS: Callaway Rogue ST Triple Diamond T prototype
Jon Rahm’s Callaway Rogue ST Triple Diamond T prototype fairway wood. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
For Rahm, a 3-wood is a driver alternative, a club that he plays off the tee when going with a driver risks hitting the ball too far. There are very few par 5s on the PGA Tour that require him to hit a driver and then a 3-wood to reach the green.
Rahm’s 3-wood has a stated loft of 16 degrees, but a close measurement reveals it is really 15.2 degrees. The HL in the name stands for high launch. The actual loft number is not important, but what is important is the gapping between his driver and this club, and the next longest club in his bag.
The Triple Diamond T is not available at retail and Callaway has not provided a lot of details about the club, but like the Triple Diamond drivers, it is ideally suited for faster-swinging players who want to reduce spin and produce a penetrating ball flight.
Rahm typically carries an 18-degree 5-wood as well, a Rogue ST, with an actual loft of 17.9 degrees of loft. On certain courses and in windy conditions, he removes it and goes with a Callaway Utility iron that has 22 degrees of loft.
IRONS: Callaway Apex TCB (4-PW), with Project X 6.5 shafts
Jon Rahm’s Callaway TCB irons. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
The Callaway TCB was created as an alternative to muscleback blades for elite golfers, with TCB standing for tour cavity-back. It has a thin topline, minimal offset and a narrow sole. Among the players who were instrumental in its creation was fellow Callaway staffer Xander Schauffele, who had been using the Callaway Apex Pro (2019) and wanted an iron with slightly less offset and a sole with more bounce.
Having joined Callaway in 2021, Rahm was not instrumental in the creation of the Apex TCB, but he took to them immediately because they are similar in construction to the irons he had played previously.
“Prior to signing with us, [Jon] was at the Eli Callaway Performance Center and tested golf balls, then went back again, and I was there, we tested pretty much everything,” Watson said. Rahm went through a combine that required him to hit a wide variety of shots using all his irons, and that testing revealed that he could smoothly transition into the TCBs.
The other thing that made the transition into the irons easy was Rahm was never going to change iron shafts. He has played the Project X 6.5 shaft since before he turned pro and Watson knew Rahm had no intention of going with anything else.
“He has always loved the feel of those shafts and they have matched up to what he’s been doing, swing-wise, perfectly,” Watson said. “Spin numbers, launch numbers and the workability of the shafts for him … it’s just a very familiar feel for him so you don’t change what’s been working.”
WEDGES: Callaway JAWS Forged (52, 56, 60 degrees), with Project X 6.5 shafts
Jon Rahm’s Callaway JAWS Forged wedges. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
Rahm uses the Apex TCB pitching wedge, which has 46.5 degrees of loft. Before Rahm joined Callaway and was shown the company’s wedges, Roger Cleveland and other Callaway designers tried to create a set of wedges that closely mimicked the wedges that Rahm was playing. With several wedge lines to choose from, they wanted the Spaniard to start from a place of familiarity, but potentially explore other options.
“I knew the 52 and the 56-degree wedges were going to be a fairly seamless transition,” Watson said. “Whereas the 60, and the amount of shots that he plays from different face angles–opening the club up to hit high shots and low shots–it was something that we would probably have to work on.”
Watson was wrong, it turns out, because Rahm left his initial Callaway fitting with all three wedges in hand, requiring no custom grind work to be done to any club.
“The fact that he left that week, loving those wedges, and we did not touch any of them, was quite incredible,” Watson said. “Standard, standard, standard. Very recently he’s asked us to put a little bevel in the front to add some extra bounce on the leading edge, but that’s it.”
PUTTER: Odyssey White Hot OG Rossie S
Jon Rahm’s Odyssey putter. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
The first putter that Rahm started using last year after joining Callaway was an Odyssey 2-Ball Ten, a large, high-MOI mallet putter with a boxy shape. The allure of that putter is a significant amount of its weight is back, away from the hitting area, in the heel and toe, making it extremely stable, especially on off-center hits.
Last season at The Memorial, however, Rahm added an Odyssey White Hot OG Rossie S that had been customized for him. The White Hot OG Rossie putters are semi-circular mallets designed with the White Hot insert that has been popular among pros and recreational golfers alike for two decades. However, while each of the White Hot OG Rossie putters available at retail has either two or three black alignment lines, Rahm’s has none.
Jon Rahm’s Odyssey White Hot OG Rossie S putter. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
Rahm’s putter also has a series of metal microhinges designed into the White Hot face insert. The microhinges debuted in 2017 and Odyssey claimed they helped to get the ball rolling, instead of skidding, more quickly. Rahm’s putter has Microhinge Star microhinges, which creates a firmer feel than previous versions and encourages the ball to come off the face quicker. Last June, when the putter went into Rahm’s bag, he felt he was leaving putts short, so this face configuration helped get more 8 to 10-foot putts to the hole.
The short slant-neck design creates about 30-degrees of toe hang, which is ideally suited for golfers who have a slight arc in their stroke.
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