NEWS FROM THE TOUR VANS
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Rory McIlroy’s metalwoods setup has been a hot topic of conversation this year – from an aborted switch at Bay Hill to huge success at the Players and Masters to a failed Characteristic Time (CT) test with his driver before the PGA Championship.
Well, McIlroy’s longest clubs made news again at the RBC Canadian Open, where he made the switch again from his TaylorMade Qi10 driver and 3-wood to Qi35 models in both with a key tweak to his driver since his three-round trial with them in March at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
McIlroy used the backup version of his Qi10 driver in finishing T47 at Quail Hollow after his primary was deemed non-conforming. But he showed up in Canada a week ahead of the U.S. Open with a new Qi35 driver that has a shorter build than his previous version at Bay Hill. The Qi35 Core head is set at 9 degrees with the hosel set to “lower” while the club measures nearly an inch shorter at 44 5/8 inches.
"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," McIlroy said. "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 Harry (Diamond, his caddie) 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 also switched into a TaylorMade Qi35 15-degree 3-wood in Canada and he swapped out his TaylorMade 5-wood for a TaylorMade P770 3-iron.
The changes were looking ahead to this week’s U.S. Open, where the rough at Oakmont will be brutally thick. A shorter driver theoretically could help gain control to keep it in the fairway. But after missing the cut in Canada after a second-round 78, hitting only 13 of 28 fairways and losing 2.186 strokes to the field off the tee, we’ll have to see if he settles on some kind of Qi35 setup this time or reverts back to his trusted Qi10.
"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," McIlroy said. "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."
Scott Michaux