Matthew

Wolff

At the time of agreeing his move to LIV Golf in June 2022, Wolff had played 65 PGA Tour events, winning one and earning $7,607,287 in prize money.

He signed up with Phil Mickelson’s HyFlyers GC and made his debut at the second event of the inaugural series, LIV Golf Invitational Portland, and gained a creditable eighth-place then claimed the runner-up spot at Bedminster in his next outing.

Wolff finished sixth in the season’s standings and for 2023 moved to a new team, Brooks Koepka’s Smash GC.

Although there were three top-10 places through the year, there were also several finishes in the 40s but Wolff still managed to end the season 27th in the standings.

He changed teams again last season to Bubba Watson’s RangeGoats, trading places with 2023 champion Talor Gooch who joined Smash.

He enjoyed three more top-10 finishes through 2024 and took 18th spot in the season’s standings, safely in the Lock Zone to ensure he would line-up again with RangeGoats this year.

Wolff is a beast when it comes to driving distance which he achieves by utilising an unorthodox swing with a kick.

Conventional coaching dictates that your lead foot should be grounded while driving, but Wolff’s left can sometimes be up on its toes and a kick of the left leg can act as a swing trigger.

That’s before you even look at the backswing where the clubhead is well outside of the target line.

It is the swift steep-to-shallow move in the downswing that loops the club into a more orthodox position, and Wolff effectively squats while unturning his hips to unleash the power that enables him to hit forever.

Wolff ranked second in driving distance among LIV Golf’s finest in 2022 with a 323.5-yard average and was third in 2024 averaging 322.3 yards.

And if he looks more like a hitter with a baseball bat in hand, that’s not too far from the mark.

Wolff is a great believer in striking the ball however feels comfortable for you and then trying to hone your technique after.

“Everyone asks me questions about why I do certain things in my swing,” he says.

“To be honest it’s all just natural. From a young age that’s how I’ve always done it and so I think that you have just got to be an athlete and do whatever you feel is best.”

It is testament to the work of his coach George Gankas that he didn’t try to change what Wolff does naturally but instead concentrated on how to get the best out of his unique style.

The pair have worked together since a 13-year-old Wolff caught the eye of the well-known coach at the Westlake, LA, driving range.

“I saw his swing and I thought it was really cool,” Gankas told Golf Monthly. “He was hitting a 20-yard draw.

“Within a month, his dad showed up and looked super-nervous about asking me to work with his son, because of how Matt’s swing looked.

“But I said: ‘Don’t worry, it is one of my favourite swings I’ve ever seen.’

“The thing I teach all my students is to learn speed first, then you learn how to control it.

“If you can swing it 130mph on the range in practice swings, you’ll feel you can control it at 120 when you’re on the course.”

Wolff stepped away from golf for two months in 2021 saying that he needed to concentrate on his mental health.

At the Masters in April he was disqualified for signing an incorrect scorecard for the second round but would not have gained any advantage as he was already certain to miss the cut.

A few weeks after that DQ he took a complete break for some time out of the spotlight before returning for the US Open in June.

“I want to always play good, I want to always please the fans,” he said at the time.

“The more I’ve been taking a little bit of time off, the more I just realized I just need to enjoy myself and be happy.”

Wolff was the target of some public criticism from his Smash GC captain Brooks Koepka in 2023 but found a happy home last season with Bubba Watson’s RangeGoats.

“Joining Bubba’s team, it was so awesome because he cares more about how you are, how you act, how you carry yourself, the man you are,” Wolff told Fairway To Heaven, LIV Golf’s official podcast.

“He does like your golf score, but he knows he has confidence in all of us, that we can all play good and we’re all putting in the work and doing what we need to do in order to play the best we can.”

Wolff has taken a break from social media so Watson’s caddie has kept his Instagram account @matthew_wolff5 updated with RangeGoats news for him.

Pride of place in Matthew Wolff’s golf bag is a furry wolf headcover and the man trusted to look after his clubs and offer advice is caddie Nick Heinen.

When he won the 3M Open in 2019 Steve Lohmeyer was his bag man, but Heinen was on duty at the 2020 Rocket Mortgage Classic in Michigan, where Wolff was runner-up, and has been a permanent fixture since.

They were collegiate team-mates at Oklahoma State and Heinen is a mean big hitter himself, having averaged 340.9 yards on the 2018 Korn Ferry Tour.

Wolff favors TaylorMade equipment and has had a long association with the brand. Leading the big guns was a Ping G430 driver with LIN-Q M40X white shaft, backed up by TaylorMade Stealth Plus 3-wood (15 degrees) and Stealth 2 Plus 6-wood (20 degrees).

His irons were also from the TaylorMade stable, P750s with Modus 130X shafts, while his well-used looking wedges were TaylorMade MG4s (50 SB and 60 LBV) backed up by a Ping S159 (60-degrees, T6).

For green work Wolff turned to a Scotty Cameron Golo 5 putter.

Matthew Wolff was born in Simi Valley, California, in 1999 and raised by parents Bill and Shari in Agoura Hills, a northern suburb of Los Angeles.

He attended Oklahoma State University where he first met future wife Kim Lloyd. In his first year at OSU he won the Phil Mickelsen Award which is given to the top college golf freshman in the US.

He married long-term girlfriend Kim in December 2024 and the couple live in Jupiter, Florida.