Albane Valenzuela What's In The Bag?
We take a look inside the bag of the American-born Swiss golfer making her Solheim Cup debut in Virginia...
Albane Valenzuela What's In The Bag?
Valenzuela was born in America to a Mexican father and a French mother and she is eligible for the European Solheim Cup team by virtue of the fact that the family moved to Switzerland when Albane was a young child. She has had a very consistent summer in 2024, resulting in a captain's pick from Suzann Pettersen. Let's take a look and see what equipment she uses...
Driver
What driver does Albane Valenzuela use?
Valenzuela was one of the early adopters to the new Titlesit GT3 driver, and uses the 10˚ head. With its new proprietary crown material, Titleist has made one of its biggest technological leaps for some time with the whole GT range, undoubtedly sitting amongst the best drivers in golf.
The GT3 is a little more pear-shaped than the GT2 and GT4 models, which clearly suits her eye. Valenzuela is a Titleist staff player, so it is no surprise to see her gaming the latest model of driver. She plays her driver with a Mitsubishi Tensei White shaft.
Fairway Woods
What fairway woods does Albane Valenzuela use?
Once again, Valenzuela has made a fairly quick switch to the latest Titleist fairway wood model, gaming two GT2 fairway woods. Her 3-wood may well be utilized more as a driver alternative than a fairway club as it is very strong lofted at 13.5˚ and is complemented by a much higher lofted 5-wood that comes in at 18˚ of loft.
These clubs are very new to the market but based on our testing and tour uptake, it is very clear that they are among the best fairway woods in the game.
Hybrids
What hybrids does Albane Valenzuela use?
This is the one area of the bag where Valenzuela veers away from Titleist products. Although we haven't been able to establish what lofts they are, we believe Valenzuela is utilizing two Ping G430 hybrids to bridge the gap between her iron set and her fairway woods.
The G430 hybrid tested exceptionally well for us and we were particularly impressed with the ease of launch and the very consistent spin and flight windows, making it one of the best hybrids on the market in 2024.
Valenzuela's hybrids are fitted with the very popular Graphite Design Tour-AD DI hybrid shafts which are also Hideki Matsuyama's favorite shaft.
Irons
What irons does Albane Valenzuela use?
Valenzuela trusts an older model of iron from Titleist, opting for the T100S irons from 2021. These were an extremely popular choice among better players looking for a little distance boost due to the 2˚ stronger lofts throughout the set.
For us, these very much sat amongst the best irons of 2021, and their performance still stands up against much of today's best products.
Valenzuela goes with a 6 - PW set makeup, before heading into more specialist wedges for her short game requirements.
Wedges
What wedges does Albane Valenzuela use?
It would be very surprising to see any contracted Titleist player using anything but Vokey wedges, and Valenzuela is no exception to that rule. The Vokey SM10 wedges are very much the gold standard among the best wedges of 2024 and Valenzuela has three of them in her bag.
She opts for a standard SM10 in her 48˚ 'gap' wedge, before moving into two options from the WedgeWorks vault in her 52˚ and 58˚ wedges.
Gap wedges generally range from 50˚ to 53˚ of loft, but Valenzuela requires something slightly stronger as her irons are pretty strong in loft.
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Putter
What putter does Albane Valenzuela use?
Another very strong category for Titleist, Valenzuela uses the Scotty Cameron Special Select range, opting for the Squareback 2 model.
The Special Select range from Scotty Cameron continues his long tradition of making some of the best putters in the game of golf.
Ball
What ball does Albane Valenzuela use?
Valenzuela entrusts her golf ball requirements to the Titleist Pro V1. Comfortably the number one ball on the combined global professional tours, the Pro V1 offers slightly softer feel, less spin, and a flatter trajectory than its sibling the Pro V1x.
Joe has worked in the golf industry for nearly 20 years in a variety of roles. After a successful amateur career being involved in England squads at every age group, Joe completed his PGA degree qualification in 2014 as one of the top ten graduates in his training year and subsequently went on to become Head PGA Professional at Ryder Cup venue The Celtic Manor Resort. Equipment has always been a huge passion of Joe’s, and during his time at Celtic Manor, he headed up the National Fitting Centres for both Titleist and Taylormade. He’s excited to bring his knowledge of hardware to Golf Monthly in the form of equipment reviews and buying advice.
Joe lives in North Devon and still plays sporadically on the PGA West region circuit. His best round in recent years came earlier in 2023 where he managed a 9 under par 63 at Trevose GC in a Devon & Cornwall PGA Tournament.
Joe's current What's In The Bag?
Driver: Switch between Ping G430 Max 10K & TaylorMade Qi10 - both with Fujikura Ventus Black 6-X
Fairway wood 1: TaylorMade BRNR Copper Mini Driver - Fujikura Ventus Black 7-X
Fairway wood 2: Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke TD 5 Wood - Fujikura Ventus Black 8-X
Irons: TaylorMade P7CB 3-PW with Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100 shafts
Wedges: Callaway Opus 50, 54, and 60 degrees - Project X LS 6.0 shafts
Putter: Odyssey Toe Up #9
Ball: TaylorMade 2024 TP5x
Grips: Golf Pride Tour Velvet 60R
Bag: Vessel Player IV Pro DXR Stand
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