Why did Rory McIlroy have to change the driver on the eve of the PGA Championship?
It's no secret that Rory McIlroy's driver is one of his absolute big weapons. He ranked third in driving distance in the 2025 PGA Tour and ranked first in the strokes he won in Tee.
So, it was reported that his Taylormade QI10 driver failed two days before the Grand Slam started, which was a very frustrating blow. The trip has been testing drivers since 2019 – a limitation is the limit on the characteristic time (CT) called the driver, which measures how long the club faces the ball and how long it takes to get the ball after the impact.
So, in short, it is a measure of its elasticity and face thickness. The governing body noted that the driver's CT must not exceed 239 microseconds, although they allow a 18 microsecond manufacturing tolerance to leave the CT limit at 257 microseconds. More, drivers will be considered unqualified.
That seemed to be the case with McIlroy on Tuesday. According to Sky Sports, about 10 players are allegedly using unqualified drivers, all of whom must replace their preferred club with new drivers with the same specifications.
So on paper, there is no difference, but for anyone who has played the game, we know that the other club head has never been exactly the same.
McIlroy had only 10 of 28 goals in the previous two days, especially struggling in 74 openings. He will advance to one shot but ranks 35th in Tee.
The Masters champion didn’t talk to the media for the second day in a row, most likely because he didn’t want to discuss his driver’s issues, partly because of his average score. There is no doubt that this is anything unsettling here, but it will be the last thing you want to discuss on the eve of your profession.
Nothing was confirmed, because Siriusxm PGA Tour Radio reported this, but the only reason was that the US PGA issued a statement after being invited to test drivers this week.
“The standard process is about one-third of the field testing under the program. That's the case with Quail Hollow this week.”
“It is not an unusual situation to find a driver’s head that crawls within the consistency range, especially for clubs that have been hit thousands of times for a long time. The results are confidential to protect players who do not know that the club is not consistent with consistency and are not responsible for any consistency other than hits thousands of times.
“If necessary, just ask the player to change his head, there is no problem for everyone. To publicly identify a player who does not match the club can lead to unnecessary doubts from the player. The Americans and the American PGA are not concerned about the player's intentions.”
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