By Ed Travis
With two US Opens and two Masters Tournaments, thanks to the pandemic, not to mention an almost 51-year-old winning a major championship, the 2020-2021 PGA Tour season was certainly one that will long be remembered.
Patrick Cantlay pocketed the most cash, with four wins, including the BMW Championship and the $15 million Tour Championship, in the FedEx Cup Playoffs. Jordan Spieth returned to relevance and elevated his game to be in the mix near the top of the leaderboard most weeks. He captured the Valero Texas Open, his first win, since the 2017 OPEN Championship. Phil Mickelson, just 24 days shy of his 51st birthday, prevailed at the PGA Championship on Kiawah Island, becoming the oldest player to win a major championship.
Collin Morikawa and Jon Rahm were two other fan favorites to win big events. The sometimes-controversial Bryson DeChambeau won twice adding the 2020 US Open and Bay Hill Championship to his resume.
Equipment companies continued to set retail sales records in 2021, as more golfers came back to the game and new people were drawn to it, due to COVID. Golf Courses are seeing record numbers of rounds, while the largest club maker Callaway Golf (NYSE: ELY) reported equipment sales of $401 million for the first six months of 2021. Double 2020’s record-setting pace and 37% higher than pre-pandemic 2019. Callaway also continues to make gains in the ball market versus the rest of the competition. A Golf Datatech market analysis showed Callaway had their highest market share in July at over 20%. This slotted them in as an even stronger number two behind market leader Titleist, a brand of Acushnet Holdings Corp. (NYSE: GOLF).
Titleist more than doubled club sales for the six months ending June 30 to $152.8 million compared with $72.4 million in 2020 while ball sales increased 98.1% to $202.1 million.
The equipment used by PGA TOUR winners is always an interesting exercise for the 19th hole debates. The major manufacturers spend millions of dollars compensating professionals to endorse their clubs. Just because your favorite pro is promoting a particular brand, don’t get carried away thinking it’s right for you.
With those caveats the driver count for this season’s tournament winners on the PGA Tour finished in a near dead heat among the big four makers: 
Titleist 14 wins,
Ping 12 wins
Callaway 11 wins
TaylorMade 10 wins
Titleist’s Pro V1 and Pro V1x hold the clear ball advantage among PGA TOUR winners and were used to win 36 titles. TaylorMade and Callaway both recorded five wins each, Srixon three and Bridgestone two.
On the greens, the greatest number of tournaments, 18 were won by players stroking one of Titleist’s Scotty Cameron models, with Callaway’s Odyssey, able to point to 12 victories. Other winners included, Ping and TaylorMade with eight each, Bettinardi and SIK each recorded two wins.
The 2021-2022 season is now underway with the Fall Wrap-Around Season. The questions for the new year are:
Will Callaway continue to make inroads into the dominance Titleist currently enjoys in the golf ball market?
What will be the newest, longest and straightest club, with the best feel, that you must have in your bag?
With a revamped schedule and new world golf events on the horizon, professional tour golf will continue to excite fans.
