Michael Block breaks down his unconventional gear setup at Charles Schwab Challenge

In the final round on Sunday at the 2023 PGA Championship, PGA Professional Michael Block made a memorable hole-in-one while playing alongside Rory McIlroy. For equipment fans, the hole-in-one was extra exciting because he made it using an old TaylorMade 2014 Tour Preferred MC covered in lead tape on the sole.

As Block revealed shortly after making the hole-in-one, he was offered large sums of money for the famous 7-iron, with offers up to $50,000.

Following his 2023 PGA Championship performance, where he finished T15, Block has since played in multiple PGA TOUR events on sponsor exemptions, and he also recently played in the 2025 PGA Championship after qualifying into the event.

On Wednesday at the Charles Schwab Challenge, GolfWRX.com caught up with Block to see what clubs are in his current bag setup, and to see if he’s still using the same irons from 2014.

As it turns out, Block is an old-school creature of habit, who prefers to use older equipment that he’s comfortable with. Check out Block’s full bag setup below, in his own words.

Driver: TaylorMade Stealth 2 (9 degrees, Fujikura Ventus Black VeloCore+ 5X shaft)

Block: “The driver is actually, right now, the Stealth 2, 9 degrees, set one notch off of lower. I got the Ventus 5x, so the Ventus 5X VeloCore+. So I went to 5X a couple years ago. I saw Charley Hoffman, actually, I was playing with him … he was hitting his 5X and he was absolutely smashing it, and Charley and I are pretty much similar ages, so I went with it and I’ve loved it ever since. I even have a backup (shaft) here just in case I get pissed [and break one], but it hasn’t happened, so it’s still alive, which is nice.

“This thing’s been great. I’m not hitting it as far. It spins a lot, but here this week I need to be straight. It has quite a bit of spin, which makes my ball go a lot straighter, which is why I’m using it.”

3-wood: TaylorMade M5 (15 degrees, Mitsubishi Diamana BB 83X shaft)

Block: “Then, I’ve got the M5 3-wood, set to lower, so 15 degrees, and I think that makes it about 13.5 degrees. Then I’ve got the Mitsubishi Diamana BB 83X, which is my little bleeder cut 3-wood. I hit it actually a couple times here at Colonial.”

5-wood: TaylorMade M5 (19 degrees, Mitsubishi Tensei CK Orange 70TX shaft)

Block: “Now, last week (at the 2025 PGA Championship) I used this thing so much it was ridiculous, I mean, into every single par 4, seriously, and even the par 3’s. This is the M5 5-wood, 19 degrees, set all the way to lower, so 17.5 degrees. This still has the old school – as you might have noticed, I’m kind of old school – this still has the old school Tensei Orange 70TX shaft in it. This has been my bread and butter for a long time as you can see.

“Now what I’ve noticed with a lot of guys, we tend to hit these woods more center to toe. You’re never going to see a wear spot out here on Tour from center to heel. I never see that, it’s always in this general zone (on the toe.) So if you see that, you gotta adjust something.”

4-iron: TaylorMade Stealth UDI (Graphite Design Tour AD-DI Hybrid 85X shaft)

Block:“Moving on, another great club that I love, is actually the 4 UDI at 23 degrees with the 85 Hybrid Flex-X. I’m probably not an X guy anymore…I could probably get more speed out of a stiff shaft, but at the same time, I like the stability of an X. I probably lose distance, I probably don’t hit it as high as I could, but at the same time, I’m so used to having that consistent feel down at the bottom. That’s why I still stick with it. But I can still hit this a little higher. That’s why I went with a fatter 4 iron, so that way I can actually hit it higher in the air and land it a little softer from 205 up to 220 yards.”

Irons: TaylorMade 2014 Tour Preferred MC (5-9 iron, Project X Rifle 6.5 Flighted shafts)

Block: “Now all the irons, same guys (as I’ve always played). I’m not exactly sure what year these were from, but they are the TaylorMade Tour Preferred MC’s with a lot of weight, and I put more towards the toe as you might be able to tell here, because my miss is more of a pull draw, and with a little extra weight on the toe, it leaves the face a little more square through the impact zone. I’ve never had them re-grooved. As you can tell, as you get to my lower clubs like the 9-iron, it’s still the OG grooves, never regrooved ever, but a lot of them have a lot of weight on the back, because back in the day I actually had the back ground down, the front leading edge, and also I even had the topline ground down to look more like a blade when I was over the golf ball. So that’s what I did with all of the irons – Greg Cesario at TaylorMade did that for me a long time ago, and he’s still with TaylorMade, and he still grinds my stuff, which is great.

“Yeah, this is all my lead tape work, and you’ll see when I get to my putter. All lead tape, I one hundred percent don’t know what anything weighs, I have no idea, I’ve never looked at it, I don’t want to know. I don’t know the frequency on my shafts. I don’t know any of this stuff. I just start literally throwing stuff on it, and I feel it, because I’m a super feel player, and what feels good is what I go with.”

Wedges: TaylorMade Milled Grind 3 (46 degrees), TaylorMade Milled Grind 2 (52 and 56 degrees), TaylorMade Milled Grind 4 (60 degrees)

Block: “Heading to the wedges, I’ve got the 46-degree MG3. So I go 46 degrees basically for that gapping area…then I’ve got the (MG2) 52… with a black S400 Dynamic Gold shaft, and all my grips are by the way Golf Pride. They’re all midsize, and underneath I’ve got a total of 4 wraps. My hands are – so I always go by, what size glove do you wear? Me, personally, I wear a size large glove. And I find (a larger grip) allows me to wrap my hands around the grip to be exactly where I want to be. If the grips are too small, I feel like Shaquille O’Neal with a basketball, and if they’re too big, I can’t hold them and I can’t release the club. Next club up would be the 56 once again, the (MG2) 56. I think this was actually a 54 ground to something else, then they put 56 on that ...

“Then getting to the 60, I actually got something new here because I need grooves around the greens, which is huge. So I’ve got the MG4 Raw material here, and due to me taking a ton of heel relief [on the sole] here, I always add weight... I don’t want to be quick with my wedges, so I like to have a lot of feel in there, so I always add weight in there. Once again, the S400 (shaft) blacked out. Pretty cool, this wedge is sweet, and this is what I will trade out maybe once a year. I should probably do it like every 3 months to be honest, but I just, once I feel the right grind on something I just stick with it.”

Putter: Odyssey White Hot 2-Ball

Block: “Last but not least, the OG, old-school, Valero Texas Open Pro-Am putter. Old story, I was giving a guy a lesson… I told him, I said, ‘Hey, you know what, I’ll give you a free lesson, but I want your putter.’ So I didn’t charge him, I just wanted it because I saw this OG 2-ball. And I’ve got about 8 of them, the one I used at Oak Hill in 2023 was actually a version 1-inch shorter, so this is not that one, but this one is just as old. So I been using this one right now because I’m trying to get my posture a little bit more up.

“Then Johnny (Thompson) just the other day on the TOUR truck wiped out my horrible rendition of me drawing a line, because normally I use my PGA Card and a Sharpie while I’m out playing and I’ll sit there putting a line on it. So he actually wiped it out and put a nice center line. He said, ‘Blockie, just so you know, your line wasn’t even close to the center.’ So that’s kind of nice, so now I’m actually going to maybe hit it in the middle of the club face from now on.

“And then the weight, once again I have no idea how much weight this is, but I put a ton on the bottom, and a ton in the middle. I mean it’s gotta weigh a lot, but I have no idea how much. I don’t even wanna know, because I keep adding, and once I start to feel the head weight with my hands, and my hands can be relaxed, that’s the weight I want it to be.”