Dylan Naidoo: What's in the bag?

Tuesday, 04 March 2025

We take a look in Dylan Naidoo's bag for his victory at the Investec South African Open Championship.

Dylan Naidoo_23.1.25_Ras Al Khaimah Championship-1_Bag (1)

A decade on from his DP World Tour debut at the 2015 Joburg Open, Naidoo arrives at the event this week buoyed by the knowledge he is now a first-time winner after overcoming Laurie Canter in a play-off at Durban Country Club on Sunday.

A regular in the co-sanctioned DP World Tour and Sunshine Tour events in recent years, he credited his driver – the Titleist GT2 – as integral to his victory, with the South African ranking fourth for driving accuracy (finding 71% of fairways across the week).

Since cracking his previous head, he had a new one built ahead of the Ras Al Khaimah Championship in January and, while prior results didn’t suggest a victory was on the way, he felt the benefits of its makeup in Durban.

"It says 10.0 (degrees), but it is more like 10.8 true loft. This has been really good, the spin has been a little lower on this," Naidoo told SMS on Tour.

"I would like it to launch a fraction higher but it has been great, especially on coastal courses where the wind is up a little."

A fixture of his bag for the last two years or so has been the Ping G430 Max three wood, which he uses off a flat setting.

“With the previous model of club, I was really struggling with the spin and whenever I hit it in the heel… it was low launching and spinning too much," he said.

“The discrepancy between a middle strike and a heel strike was too much. This face or this club for whatever reason, the spin profile stays nice and consistent wherever I hit it on the face.”

With his 21-degree Callaway Apex UW fairway wood, Naidoo has played around with his swing weight preference this season, but appears to have now found the winning formula with his Ventus 8 X shaft.

“I wanted it half a degree shorter when we played at Leopard Creek in December and that really threw off the weight a lot," he added.

“That was the first time I thought quite a lot about swing weight. It was too light, starting left and drawing quite a lot on me.

“When we eventually got it to what I want it was so much better and now it is quite a fixture in the bag.”

In general, Naidoo finds that the spin he generates is dependant on the swing weight of his clubs.

“I was a little bit too much on the spinny side with this previously and now it is in a good space,” he added.

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Going down the bag further, he has introduced a four utility Titleist T200 iron into his bag in recent months which he uses as a second shot club.

“I am two degrees weak on all my clubs," he said. "I struggle to flight it high enough, so this really helps me to get the ball speed plus the launch that I am looking forward to.”

With the rest of his iron set – from five through to nine – he has the Titleist 620 CB, which has a slightly lower ball speed, and the C-Taper shaft which he started using in October fits his desired spin profile.

“It’s been a pleasant change,” he said. “I was fighting a right miss initially, but I am now pretty comfortable with them.”

He uses the same shafts in his Vokey SM10 wedges, with his lob wedge at 59.5 degrees, his 54-degree wedge at 55 degrees and the gap wedge at 50 degrees.

Over the last year, Naidoo has used a Titleist Scotty Cameron Tour Only TFB 2 putter, having previously used a SIK model.

“I have always really liked the LA golf shaft," he said. "I was previously playing an SIK putter, and I had the LA golf from that time, so I went and got myself another one of those shafts.

“Titleist were amazing in the process of making this for me. They have got a really special face line they have done for me. It has been awesome, I really like this putter.

“They have built a couple more and I will probably get to test them but for now it is going to stay in the bag for a while.”