Breaking Down Rory McIlroy's Comments on Fast Drivers (and Slower Golf Balls)

At the TOUR Championship, Rory opened up on several gear topics, including driver life cycles and his hope for the rollback.

Ryan Barath

When it's 90° outside, the topic of snowflakes doesn't generally come up in conversation, but this week in Atlanta during his TOUR Championship press conference, Rory McIlroy made specific reference to them—except he wasn't talking weather; he was talking drivers.

The mention came from a question about TaylorMade and its decision to move to a 2-year driver-and-woods product cycle, away from the yearly cadence it has stuck to for over 2 decades.

He was also asked if he and other high-level TaylorMade staffers, including Scottie Scheffler and Nelly Korda, had a say in the decision.

Yeah, I think all of us have a big say in that. I think all of us really want it. You think about you really like a driver you're playing, and then something else is put in your hand say in October, November time, so nine or ten months after you get your driver, and it's like -- the thing is, all the manufacturers do a great job of fitting you into what is the best product for you, but they're all slightly different.

It was that point about how even with the high tolerances of modern equipment manufacturing where Rory mentioned how each driver can still feel different, even when by every measure they're identical.

Thankfully I found a really good one that I like at the minute, but we call them snowflakes, like one Qi4D with the same head, the same loft, same weighting, I'm on the exact same, to me sometimes just doesn't feel quite the same. It could be me, it could be a mental thing that I have. But I think being able to use the same driver for say like an 18-month period I think just gives guys a little bit more of a level of comfort.

Rory then talked about the dilemma surrounding modern drivers and how at the highest level for those hitting lots of balls and swinging well over 115mph—over time as the faces see more action they becoming hotter to the point where they will fail the USGAs CT regulations.

The other thing is these drivers only last for about 18 months anyway. The heads go. I've obviously fallen foul of that at the PGA last year, Scottie as well. You really can only play a driver for a year to a year and a half before you've got to switch it out anyway.

To be fair 99% of recreational golfers never have to worry about this problem, but for players like Rory it does eventually become an issue.

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Then came the topic of the golf ball rollback and a question about whether Rory was encouraged by the governing bodies' change in timeline implementation.

Yeah, I'd say maybe a year or two ago I was getting a little impatient, and I was like, please, somebody, just do something. But I think that was to look at it a little bit too simplistically. Surely we can just do something about the golf ball; everyone will go back 10 or 15 yards.

But I think from the research that the TOUR has done, and again, like Cameron Young and now Gary Woodland played the golf ball last week, the Pro V1 Double Dot, that would be a conforming golf ball if it were the 2028 or 2030 rules.

I just think the manufacturers are so good that the governing bodies can put rules in place, but they're going to find ways to get around them. I just think there needs to be more thought being put into it. I think what is a good thing is it seems like the governing bodies and the manufacturers and the PGA TOUR are being a little bit more collaborative in terms of what they can do.

Yes, it may take a couple extra years to figure out what the need is, but I think everyone agrees that the equipment needs to be regulated. It needs to be regulated. It just can't keep carrying on at the rate it's going. Not at the elite level. Leave amateurs alone. Bifurcate. I'm all for bifurcation. But I think at this level, to keep some of those golf courses relevant that we want to go to and we're talking about, I think equipment, whether that's ball, whether that's club, whatever that means, I think it has to be regulated to a higher degree than it is at the minute.

I believe the biggest takeaway is the idea of bifurcation, which would allow amateurs to continue to play a golf ball that (theoretically) doesn't change while the professionals have to use a ball that is not at long.

Considering that bifurcation was one of the original resistance points of the conversation and how it would create greater confusion within the equipment landscape, this opinion shift could be the thing that actually allows for a rule change faster.

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