J.J. Spaun won the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth — the DP World Tour’s flagship event, on English soil, against a field that included Rory McIlroy and Adam Scott — and did it with a driver from one company and a ball from another. Nobody seems to have noticed the ball part. We noticed.
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The Win
Spaun closed with a 5-under 67, ripping off four birdies in his final five holes to win his first BMW PGA Championship title at 17-under 271, two shots clear of a group that included Aaron Rai, Adam Scott, and Rory McIlroy. It’s his first DP World Tour flagship win, on a course that doesn’t hand those out cheaply.
The Ball Nobody’s Talking About
Spaun’s winning bag, per GOLF.com’s equipment breakdown, is a mix: a Titleist GT3 driver, Srixon ZXi5/ZXi7 irons, an L.A.B. Golf DF3 putter, and the ball: a Srixon Z-Star Diamond.
That’s a genuinely unusual bag. Most tour pros play one manufacturer’s driver, irons, and ball as a full sponsorship package. Spaun’s driver comes from Titleist — a direct competitor to Srixon in the ball aisle — while his irons and ball are both Srixon. It’s the kind of mixed setup that only survives on tour when a player has genuinely tested his way into it and a brand is comfortable letting the numbers do the talking instead of insisting on a full-bag deal.
Why This Matters
The Z-Star Diamond isn’t Srixon’s flagship Z-Star XV — the ball Ryan Fox used to win the Open Championship — it’s a different model in the same family, and now it has its own marquee win to point to. Two different Srixon tour balls, two different major-adjacent wins, in the same season. That’s not an accident; that’s a ball manufacturer with real depth in its tour lineup, not just one hero product.
For everyday golfers, the takeaway isn’t “go buy a Z-Star Diamond because a guy won with it.” It’s that Srixon’s tour balls are winning against full-field, full-strength competition at the highest non-major level golf offers, and they’re doing it with multiple models, not one. If you’ve written Srixon off as the budget alternative to Titleist and Callaway, results like this are the reason to reconsider.
For more info: GOLF.com
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