Driver mess follows Rory to Oakmont
McIlroy has 'concern' after second aborted effort in 2025 to switch to new driver
‘It concerns me,’ Rory McIlroy said of his driver issues ahead of U.S. Open (Jorge Lemus/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
For all the hand-ringing and, frankly, ignorance surrounding the Rory McIlroy driver issue at the PGA Championship, the reason overlooked is that it left the Masters champion scrambling to get comfortable with the club he hits the best.
So far, it appears that quest continues.
McIlroy’s TaylorMade Qi10 driver was deemed non-conforming days before the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow as part of random testing that also flagged several other drivers, including that of eventual winner Scottie Scheffler.
The difference, however, was that Scheffler knew his club was close to crossing the spring-like threshold the United States Golf Association uses to measure drivers and prepared for it. Two weeks earlier, he began working with a new backup driver and was comfortable with it once the tournament began.
McIlroy was not so fortunate. And the point-missers in this whole mess got too focused on some sort of nefarious conspiracy instead of recognizing that the typical wear and tear that a tour pro puts a driver through will eventually send it over the testing line.
And when it has to be taken out of play, it means using another one. And at the top level of the game, that’s not such as easy switch.
McIlroy had a poor PGA Championship using his backup, tying for 47th. So at the RBC Canadian Open he played a new TaylorMade Qi35 driver with a shorter shaft, presumably to gain more control. That back-fired and now he heads to Oakmont this week for the U.S. Open coming off one of his worse performances in years, a missed cut by miles at the RBC Canadian Open, where he shot a second-round 78.
In finishing 9-over par for two rounds at TPC Toronto at Osprey Point, McIlroy missed the cut for the first time since last summer’s Open Championship. It was just the second time he did not play the weekend since the 2023 Masters.
“Look, even though the last two days didn’t go the way I wanted them to, there’s still things that I can take from it, and there’s still things that I can learn,” McIlroy said in Toronto, where he was playing for the first time since the PGA. “I’m going to have to do a lot of practice and a lot of work over the weekend at home and try to at least have a better idea of where my game is going into next week.”
McIlroy, ranked No. 2 in the world, was playing a new, shorter TaylorMade Qi35 driver and he again struggled off the tee, hitting just 13 of 28 fairways to ranked 142nd in the field. It was the second time in 2025 he tried to switch to the newer model, as he previously played three rounds with a Qi35 at Bay Hill before going back to his old standby Qi10.
That kind of driving won’t cut it at Oakmont, known for its brutal rough.
“I went back to a 44-inch driver this week to try to get something that was a little more in control and could try to get something a bit more in play,” said McIlroy, ranked No. 2 in the world to Scheffler. “But if I’m going to miss fairways, I’d rather have the ball speed and miss the fairway than not.
“I was saying to (caddie Harry Diamond) going down the last, this is the second time this year I’ve tried the new version, and it hasn’t quite worked out for me. So I’d say I’ll be testing quite a few drivers over the weekend.”
McIlroy acknowledged this is not a great situation.
“It concerns me,” the five-time major champion said. “You don’t want to shoot high scores like the one I did today. Still, I felt like I came here obviously with a new driver, thinking that that sort of was going to be good and solve some of the problems off the tee, but it didn’t.
“Obviously, going to Oakmont next week, what you need to do more than anything else there is hit fairways. Still sort of searching for the sort of missing piece off the tee. Obviously, for me, when I get that part of the game clicking, then everything falls into place for me. Right now, that isn’t. Yeah, that’s a concern going into next week.”
Xander Schauffele had a driver testing issue at the 2019 Open — the first year the system was put in place – and he had a solid explanation for the entire thing, one that puts in perspective what it means and why this is not a “competitive” advantage issue but more one that leads to discomfort over equipment.
“I didn't even understand sort of the public's negative opinion on it,” Schauffele said at the Memorial. “It didn’t really register in my head because I know, one, it’s, like, we hit our drivers a lot, so, like, they creep and then they go over a line (in which case they no longer conform). We don’t know when. We have no clue. Unless our driver physically cracks and you start hitting these knuckle balls off the tee that kind of disperse everywhere, then you know your driver’s broken.
“But in the terms of this creep thing, it’s not like you’re going to be a guy who has 170 ball speed and then all of a sudden your driver’s hot and you have 185. It’s not like a corked bat (in baseball). That’s just not how golf works. You either swing it hard and hit it hard or you don’t.
“I think the trickiest part is no driver’s the same and no shaft is the same. They can have all the same writing and logos on them, but the makeup of each head and shaft is slightly different. A lot better now than they used to be, but we have a trusty, our trusty club, and then you take it out and switch it. Same thing with a putter, you know. No club is exactly the same. So as soon as you make us change, there’s a little bit of a grace period where you have to get used to it
“But by no means do I think anyone is, like, trying to have some hot driver out here. That’s not really how this works. It’s, like, your club and you want to use that club because you know it like it’s your best friend.”