Blade Irons Still Dominate: 2026 PGA Tour Winners Prove the Classic Design Endures

Remember at the beginning of the season when Rory McIlroy switched into a set of cavity-back irons, and more pros were switching out of blades seemingly every week?

That didn’t last long.

Not only did McIlroy switch back to his TaylorMade RORS Proto blades before his season debut at Pebble Beach and ultimately used them to win his second-straight Masters, the first five events of the PGA Tour season were also won by blade players.

Ultimately, blade players won 17 of the FedEx Cup regular season’s 37 events, a not-so-insignificant share. Players still value the precision and control offered by muscle back irons en masse on the PGA Tour.

But just because a large number of PGA Tour pros are still playing muscle backs doesn’t mean they’re completely giving up forgiveness. Quite the contrary, in fact.

Twenty-eight of this season’s winners used multiple models in their iron sets. Specifically, more than half (15), opted to use something more forgiving for just the 4-iron slot. Two winners, Aaron Rai and Alex Fitzpatrick, had the same iron model throughout the bag, but didn’t have a 4-iron at all! World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler was a prime example, as he accounted for three of this season’s six wins by players using a utility iron as their 4-iron.

From a brand and model standpoint, Titleist led the count with 13 wins, which is right on par with their overall usage share on the PGA Tour of 34 percent. Titleist has been the most played iron on the PGA Tour for the past 13 seasons.

The winningest iron brands during the 2026 FedEx Cup season

No. 1 Titleist (13 wins)

Not only did Titleist have the most winning iron sets on the PGA Tour, they also had the most different models among those 13 winners. Among primary iron set models, three generations of the T100 won this season, with the current generation 2025 model capturing five wins alone.

The other wins were made up of combo sets featuring the 620 MB, 620 CB and MB prototypes. Those prototype wins were by Cameron Young and his 631.CY MBs and Jackson Koivun, who was using the 620 MB Dot Prototype.

Just two players, Tom Kim and Ricky Castillo, played the same Titleist iron model in their set, 4-PW. The rest use either a combo set, like Wyndham Clark, who splits his set of T100s with T200s at the 5-iron, or have a more forgiving 4-iron like the T100 for MB and CB players, or the players distance T250.

No. 2 TaylorMade (8 wins)

Thanks to Scottie Scheffler’s three victories and Aaron Rai’s PGA Championship win, the P7TW accounted for half of TaylorMade’s iron victories.

The only player to win with TaylorMade irons without any muscle backs in his set was Jacob Bridgeman.

None of TaylorMade’s eight iron winners used the same model in the 4-iron spot. Rory McIlroy jumped from his RORS Protos to a P760 at 4-iron, Michael Thorbjornsen used a P7MC 4-iron from the P7MB, Collin Morikawa had a split set of P730 blades and P7CBs, and Bridgeman moved from the P7CBs to a P770 5-iron before using a utility 4-iron.

Rai’s only iron model was the P7TW, but he plays a 5-hybrid instead of a 4-iron.

No. 3 Ping (6 wins)

Perhaps no brand had a more interesting set of winning irons than Ping. Only two of Ping’s victories, Kristoffer Reitan (Blueprint S) and Brandt Snedeker (i240), were by players using irons still in Ping’s current lineup.

Matt Fitzpatrick collected three victories with the 13-year-old Ping S55 irons that he’s used for nearly all of his PGA Tour career. Viktor Hovland collected the last win with Ping i210 irons that are now two generations old.

Interesting, not only were none of Ping’s victories by blade players, but also only Fitzpatrick played any semblance of a combo set by moving to an i210 4-iron.

T4. Srixon (3 wins)

While it didn’t duplicate the success of 2025, Srixon again had another solid year in 2026, with three wins, including Ryan Fox winning the Open Championship in July.

Fox and Nico Echavarria both won with the same composition of Srixon ZXi7 in the 6-iron through PW and the larger ZXi5 in the 5- and 4-iron. J.J. Spaun had a similar setup, but played the ZXi5 only in the 4-iron.

T4. Bridgestone (3 wins)

Chris Gotterup’s three victories came as the only player on the PGA Tour using Bridgestone’s 220 MBs. Durring his wins, Gotterup played the muscle backs through his set from 4-iron to PW, but starting in the playoffs, he added a new, Japan-only Bridgestone cavity-back at the 4-iron spot.

6. Callaway (2 wins)

Callaway’s two iron victories this year came from their top two Tour irons. Akshay Bhatia used his Apex TCB set at Bay Hill while Stefano Mazzoli used the new Apex MB ’26 in the Dominican Republic.

As with the trend, both players had different 4-irons, with Bhatia choosing a utility iron and Mazzoli using Apex TC 4- and 5-irons.

Other iron brands to win on the PGA Tour in 2026

All won one event.

• Miura (Justin Rose: TC-202 4-6, MC-502 7-PW)
• Cobra (Gary Woodland: King Tour 4, King MB 5-PW)
• Mizuno (Steven Fisk: Pro 245 4, Pro 243 5, Pro S-3 6-PW)

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