The Gear Minimalist: What Chris Gotterup’s Winning Bag Tells Us About Playing Your Game
There’s something refreshingly honest about Chris Gotterup’s approach to golf. While most tour players juggle sponsorships from half a dozen equipment manufacturers, Gotterup keeps it simple: Bridgestone balls, Bridgestone irons, and a carefully curated collection of clubs from a handful of trusted partners. No chaos. No constant gear shuffling. Just a player committed to knowing his tools inside and out.
His back-to-back wins to start the 2026 PGA Tour season—first with the Bridgestone VS Black Proto, then with the new Tour B X—tell a story that extends far beyond scorecard statistics. They reveal something about the relationship between equipment and confidence, between consistency and success. And honestly, that’s a lesson every golfer, from tour pro to weekend warrior, needs to hear right now.
The Case for Commitment Over Collection
I’ve noticed golfers are increasingly caught in the gear treadmill. New driver drops? Must try it. Your buddy switched wedges? Better test them too. The golf industry feeds this anxiety, releasing new models constantly, each promising marginal gains. But Gotterup’s strategy suggests a different path: deep familiarity beats constant novelty.
By maintaining exclusivity with Bridgestone for his irons and balls, Gotterup removes a variable that haunts most amateur golfers: equipment doubt. When you play the same equipment consistently, you develop an intuitive understanding of how it performs in different conditions. You stop wondering if your miss was the club or you. You know it’s you—and that knowledge, while humbling, is actually liberating.
For everyday golfers, this translates to a practical mindset: choose your gear deliberately, then commit to it for a full season. Give yourself time to truly learn how your clubs behave. Stop chasing specs and start building muscle memory. The 2-3 mph ball speed increase and 8.7 yards of distance that Gotterup and Jason Day saw during testing of the new Tour B X? That’s meaningful, sure. But it only matters if you trust your equipment enough to execute under pressure.
When Technology Serves the Mental Game
Here’s what caught my attention about the new Bridgestone Tour B X: it includes MindSet, a visual cue printed directly on the golf ball designed to help separate analytical thinking from athletic performance. It sounds almost too simple—a dot on a ball to manage your thoughts—but it reflects a growing recognition on the professional level that golf is fundamentally a mental game.
“The new TOUR B X with MindSet – the first golf ball scientifically designed to help players separate analytical thinking from athletic performance. MindSet is a visual cue printed directly on the golf ball, serving as a reminder of a simple three-step process: identify your target, visualize the shot path, focus on the dot.”
Three steps: identify, visualize, focus. That’s not revolutionary advice—sports psychologists have been preaching target visualization for decades. But the brilliance here is the execution. By putting it literally on the ball you’re about to hit, Bridgestone turned abstract mental discipline into a concrete ritual. Every shot becomes a reminder to get out of your head and into your body.
For weekend golfers, this principle matters enormously. You don’t need a special ball to practice the MindSet routine. Pick your target. See the shot in your mind. Trust your swing. The routine is free. The transformation comes from discipline and repetition, not equipment cost.
Building Your Own Winning Configuration
Gotterup’s bag is a masterclass in purposeful eclecticism. He commits to Bridgestone for irons and balls—the foundation—but mixes in Ping for the driver, TaylorMade for woods and wedges, and a Spider Tour X putter. This isn’t indecision; it’s strategic. He’s using each manufacturer’s strengths where they matter most.
Notice the putter choice: TaylorMade Spider Tour X, the same model Scottie Scheffler used to win the American Express just weeks earlier. Three of the first four PGA Tour events this season were won by players using the Spider Tour X. That’s not coincidence—that’s a club that delivers measurable confidence under pressure. The True Path alignment system, the precision weighting, the White TPU Pure Roll insert—these specifications solve real problems golfers face on the greens.
The lesson here is knowing what matters most. If you struggle with putter confidence, don’t cheap out. If your iron play is solid, don’t obsess over switching sets every two years. Identify your weakness, invest in quality for that specific club, and trust it.
The Shaft Strategy Nobody Talks About
One detail that separates professional equipment from amateur setups is shaft selection. Gotterup games Project X HZRDUS Smoke Black RDX in both his driver and mini driver—high-modulus aerospace-grade carbon fiber designed for stiffness and low spin. The wedge shafts are Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400 Black Onyx, legendary steel for feel and feedback.
Shafts are the unsung heroes of golf equipment. They’re where swing speed, tempo, and club head technology actually meet. A better shaft can solve swing issues that new club heads can’t. For serious golfers looking to improve, a proper shaft fitting often delivers better results than a new driver head. It’s also where your local club fitter can add real value—not upselling you on the flashiest new model, but finding the right shaft for your actual swing characteristics.
The Grip You Feel Every Shot
Gotterup uses Golf Pride Z-Grip cords, known for maximum feedback and firmness. That’s intentional. Tour players want to feel everything—the lie of the club, the turf, the feedback at impact. Your hands are the only connection between you and the club. Grips matter more than most golfers realize.
“Our distinct, deep ‘Z’ shaped texture and full cotton cord combine to deliver our firmest grip yet. Get maximum feedback on every shot and confidence in all conditions.”
Consider upgrading your grips. They’re relatively inexpensive, easily replaceable, and directly impact your connection to the club. If you’re playing worn, slippery grips, you’re literally handicapping yourself.
Playing Your Game, Not Someone Else’s
What strikes me most about Gotterup’s setup is its specificity to him. His swing speed demands particular shaft profiles. His eye for the game drives his equipment choices. He’s not following a template—he’s executing a plan.
The deeper message for all of us is this: great golf doesn’t come from owning the same equipment as the pros. It comes from understanding your own game, committing to equipment that serves that game, and then practicing relentlessly. Gotterup won because he hit better shots when it mattered, not because his balls flew two yards farther. The technology helped; his execution won.
Your 2026 challenge isn’t to buy Gotterup’s exact setup. It’s to develop the same intentionality he brings to his bag—choosing gear deliberately, committing to it, and then trusting it completely on the course. That mindset, more than any equipment spec, is what separates winning golfers from the rest of us.
