LIV Golfer Matthew Wolff looks to be the latest player to have made an equipment or apparel change over the course of the off-season. The big-hitting American may even have switched both heading into 2024.
Having previously been a Nike staffer for clothing and a TaylorMade club-wielder across his fledgling pro career, that included a runner-up finish at the 2020 US Open at Winged Foot, a recent video from the LIV Golf League would suggest Wolff has moved on from the pair of popular brands.
In the video - which is captioned with "Wolff getting dialled in at Medalist" and filmed by coach George Gankas - Wolff can be seen ripping his driver from three different angles on at least a couple of different holes. Looking past his idiosyncratic swing - inspired by a love of baseball - it's possible to note that Wolff is swinging a Ping G430 driver and wearing FootJoy shoes, while there is no sign of any Nike gear.
Although the video would appear to paint a pretty clear picture, Wolff's bio on social media still includes the phrases 'Team Nike' and 'Team TaylorMade', but should he have signed a deal elsewhere, a move to Ping would make sense, given his new LIV Golf team captain Bubba Watson has long been an ambassador for the brand. The driver is a G430 model, but it isn't clear which, while the FootJoy shoes look to be the Premiere Series Packard.
Wolff signed for Watson's Range Goats GC a year on from leaving Phil Mickelson's HyFlyers and at the end of a torrid season under the captaincy of Brooks Koepka at Smash GC.
Wolff's apparent split with Nike and TaylorMade would make him the latest high-profile name to start afresh in 2024, following on from Tiger Woods, Jason Day and Xander Schauffele. It was confirmed yesterday that after 27 years, Nike and Woods were parting ways, ending one of the longest-running athlete partnerships in history.
Schauffele was seen wearing Descente clothes instead of his usual Adidas gear at The Sentry while Day officially signed with the relatively-unknown Malbon Golf in the days before the first competitive tee shot was struck.
Day opted to end his seven-year association with Nike in favor of the relatively fresh-faced Malbon, having also - coincidentally - parted ways with TaylorMade in January 2021 in order to become an equipment-free agent. Since then, the Australian has experimented with several brands - including Ping, Titleist and Bridgestone, the latter of which he has a deal with for golf balls.
