NEWS FROM THE TOUR VANS
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With another appointment with potential career-slam destiny approaching at the Masters in three weeks, Rory McIlroy picked a weird time to start tinkering with his equipment setup heading into the meat of the 2025 season.
Despite winning at Pebble Beach at the start of February with three TaylorMade Qi10 woods and a 50-degree wedge in his bag, McIlroy shuffled the deck at Bay Hill. Then before Sunday’s final round, he reshuffled it right back.
At the Arnold Palmer Invitational, McIlroy deployed three new TaylorMade Qi35 woods – driver, 15-degree 3-wood and 18-degree 4-wood – as well as a TaylorMade prototype P770 3-iron and a 48-degree MG4 wedge that took the place of the 46.5- and 50-degree options he was using and joins the 54 and 60 in a three-wedge setup.
But after a Saturday 73 at Arnie’s place, Rory abandoned all of those changes and plans to stick with his previous setup at least through the Masters.
“Yeah, sort of going back to what I’m comfortable with,” he said. “I tried new woods for the first three days, didn’t quite work out the way I wanted it to. So, yeah, I went back to my old stuff today … driver, fairway wood, everything.
“I led strokes gained off the tee in both Pebble and Torrey [Pines], so it was a really good idea to change,” he added sarcastically. “And then, like yesterday, I lost strokes off the tee, which is the first time I’ve done that in a long time.”
Before Bay Hill started, McIlroy explained that he decided to rethink his setup based on the increased spin of the TaylorMade TP5 ball he switched to in January.
“I just feel like with the ball I’m a lot more comfortable playing those sort of half- and three-quarter shots, so comfortable going back to three wedges,” McIlroy said.
That shift allowed McIlroy to amend the other end of his bag with the new Qi35s plus an additional stick to use off the tee when the landing area gets pinched.
“I would hit my 3-wood that’s going like 285, 290, but guys that are shorter than me are hitting driver sort of 300 or 310, so ... I feel like I was at a disadvantage in some ways, even to people that hit it shorter than me, depending upon the course setup,” McIlroy said of the decision to go with a stronger 3-wood, which he prefers to the mini driver.
His 15-degree Qi35 ranged from 300-305 yards, allowing him to switch from a 5-wood to 4-wood to reduce the gap between fairway options. The P770 3-iron takes the place of his 5-wood.
“It just sort of gives me more options off the tee,” McIlroy said before executing the different option of going right back to his old setup.
Jason Day is prepping his Malbon outfits for the upcoming Masters, where if you’ll recall he was sent to the locker room midround last April to change out of a sweater that was deemed inappropriate for Augusta National’s marketing tastes. Whether his 2025 Malbon outfits push the limit too far again remains to be seen. He’s already worn a full-on sweatsuit at Pebble Beach this year, so there’s no telling what he’ll try to get away with next.
“Augusta is a little crazy,” he said of the look his Malbon scripting team has planned for the Masters. “Fingers crossed they’re going to let me wear some of the stuff.”
On the more conventional equipment front, Day deployed a TaylorMade Qi35 9-degree driver at Bay Hill in lieu of his usual Ping G430 LST to pick up yardage with the extra speed.
“I don’t have the speed that I used to but I was on the range cruising at 175 mph (of ball speed) on Monday, which was quite nice,” Day said of the new big stick. “So once you start getting some adrenaline going, you start cruising at 177, hopefully popping into 180. And the spin was right, which was good.”
He was testing a previously unseen heavier, center-shafted TaylorMade Spider 5K-ZT (zero torque) putter at Bay Hill. “I kept hitting everything long, but on breaking putts – left to right, right to left – it tested way better than my Spider,” Day told GolfWRX.com.
“Now the bottom is completely different than any other Spider. … Essentially you can put it on the ground and you’re not twisting it. … When you have it sitting flat on the ground, where it’s just like flush to the ground, there’s no chance of it moving.”
Day withdrew the morning of the Players Championship first round with an illness.
Scott Michaux
