Rory McIlroy using new driver amid ‘non-conforming’ report

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — He may be nine shots off the lead and have made the cut on the number, but there still is plenty of attention around Rory McIlroy at Quail Hollow.

More specifically, around Rory McIlroy’s driver.

McIlroy swapped out driver heads this week. His newbie is a TaylorMade Qi10 model, just like his gamer, but more polished; the driver McIlroy had in his bag at Philadelphia Cricket Club last week had defined wear marks on the sole (see below). This might not have raised eyebrows if McIlroy hadn’t won the Masters with his gamer a month ago, and if he had played well with the new driver head this week at the PGA Championship. 

But McIlroy hasn’t driven it well at all, hitting just four fairways on Thursday and six on Friday. In the middle of that Friday round, SiriusXM reported that McIlroy’s old driver head had been deemed “no longer permissible.” That phrasing is vague enough that it could mean a number of things, but SiriusXM staffer Jason Sobel clarified it meant the driver was deemed “non-conforming by the USGA.” The USGA oversees driver testing this week at Quail Hollow, just as it does at PGA Tour events.

During the Sirius XM spot, host Taylor Zarzour said: “[McIlroy] was not able to use it this week — his gamer, if you will. it was deemed to be no longer permissible. Whether it was cracked or something had happened to the head. Rory [was] unable to use that driver and switched drivers yesterday…”

Players switch out driver heads throughout the season, sometimes because there are cracks in the face and other times because the faces wear so much that they generate a spring-like effect, like a trampoline, in which the ball stays in touch with the face for a longer-than-permitted period of time. In the battle against distance, the USGA and R&A have set standards that limit this spring-like effect (called Characteristic Time, or CT) and conduct driver testing at tournaments. 

So, why was McIlroy’s driver head deemed, as SiriusXM reported, no longer permissible? 

That’s a mystery that may not get solved until McIlroy explains it himself. When GOLF.com asked the PGA of America about McIlroy’s driver, a media official referred us to the USGA, which conducted this week’s testing. The USGA declined to comment on the Sirius XM report, saying only that the PGA Championship testing program “is consistent with the same level of support that we provide to the PGA Tour as part of their regular program for driver testing” and “the results are confidential.”  

A TaylorMade spokesperson said he did not know why McIlroy had a new driver head. 

As for McIlroy? After shooting 74 Thursday, he declined to speak to reporters. And when he rallied to make the cut Friday, despite finishing with consecutive bogeys, he declined again, racing up a set of steps from scoring and heading to the parking lot. 

A similar situation played out for McIlroy two years ago at the 2023 Genesis Invitational. In that instance, McIlroy revealed that he had proactively switched into a new driver head because he was worried the old one would not pass a CT test.

“I wish I could use my driver from [2022],” McIlroy said a month later, “but I can’t just because of — you use a driver for so long, and it starts to get a little too…basically, it just wouldn’t pass the test. I just didn’t even want to take the chance. I just was not comfortable knowing that it could feel — doesn’t look good on me, doesn’t look good on TaylorMade.”

McIlroy has been wildly successful with, and devoted to, the Qi10 driver. In March, he paid an Uber driver nearly $1,000 transport his old driver from Jupiter, Fla., to Orlando so he could make a mid-tournament club switch at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

This isn’t the first time driver testing has become a story at a major. At the 2019 Open Championship, the R&A deemed Xander Schauffele’s driver non-conforming, which had him raising questions about the testing process, which includes only a fraction of the field. The R&A tested 30 players’ drivers at random, and Schauffele’s was the only one that failed the test — that we heard about.