NEWS FROM THE TOUR VANS
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Freshly added to the USGA and R&A’s list of conforming driver heads, the newest TaylorMade drivers came two playoff losses from sweeping the DP World Tour’s season-ending desert swing.
After three TaylorMade Qi4D driver models showed up on the conforming list on Monday before the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship – signaling the not-yet-released driver’s eligibility to be used in competition – both Tommy Fleetwood and Rory McIlroy were among a handful of players to immediately put the big stick in action.
Fleetwood, using a Qi4D LS model, put his new driver as well as a new TaylorMade TP Soto Truss TF Prototype putter he helped design into play and immediately tied the course record (64) in the opening round at Yas Links. He ultimately fell to Aaron Rai in a playoff.
Fleetwood was particularly excited about his new flat stick.
“The guys at TaylorMade, they have done an amazing job like we spoke about, designing something a little bit different,” Fleetwood said of his new putter.
“It’s been great practicing with something new and something that feels really, really good. Something that I feel like is mine, if you like, and having that input in the design. [Thursday] was an unbelievable opener for it. Couldn’t have really gotten any better.”
McIlroy, meanwhile, put the full Qi4D fleet (driver, 3-wood and 5-wood) into play at Abu Dhabi and Dubai, where he too fell in a playoff at the end of the DP World Tour Championship to Matt Fitzpatrick but claimed a seventh Race to Dubai crown. McIlroy dabbled with the Qi35 early in 2025 but ended up sticking with his TaylorMade Qi10 in what turned out to be an historic season for him completing the career Grand Slam.
But the new Qi4D outlasted his Qi35 experiment and remained in his bag for both events in the Middle East and presumably is going with him to next week’s Australian Open after a solid debut.
“I felt like the driver was good,” McIlroy said in Abu Dhabi, where he averaged 334 yards with the driver and hit 78 percent of fairways in his opening-round 68. “Obviously, a new driver in the bag this week. Felt like that worked well.”
Other players to put the Qi4D into their bags straightaway included Ryggs Johnston and Keita Nakajima.
On the U.S. side, Luke Clanton and Jacob Bridgeman were spotted at last week’s RSM Classic at Sea Island with the Qi4D in their bags while LPGA star Charley Hull deployed one at the Annika event at Florida’s Pelican Golf Club.
Another driver on the new conforming list is the Ping G440 K, which South Africa’s Thriston Lawrence used in the DP World Tour Championship. That’s a long way from the 8-year-old Ping G400 driver that Adam Schenk used to win the Butterfield Bermuda Championship.
Scott Michaux