Why did Rory McIlroy have to change his driver on the eve of the PGA Championship?

Mark Townsend 17 May 2025

It’s no secret that Rory McIlroy’s driver is one of his absolute big weapons. On the PGA Tour in 2025 he is third in Driving Distance and rankedd in first for Strokes Gained Off The Tee.

So, to be reportedly told that his TaylorMade Qi10 driver is non-conforming two days before the start of a Major is a pretty crushing blow. The Tour have been testing drivers since 2019 – one limit is on something called a driver’s Characteristic Time (CT), which measures the time it takes for a clubface to contact the ball and how long it spends in contact with the ball after impact.

So, in short, it is a measurement of its springiness and the thickness of the face. The governing bodies state that a driver must not have CT of more than 239 microseconds, although they allow manufacturing tolerances of 18 microseconds to leave the CT limit at 257 microseconds. Anything more, and a driver will be considered non-conforming.

Which appears to have been the case with McIlroy on Tuesday. Supposedly, according to Sky Sports, around 10 players were using non-conforming drivers and all had to replace their go-to club with a new driver featuring the same specs.

So, on paper, nothing should be any different but, for anyone who has played the game, we all know that a different clubhead never quite feels the same.

Over the first two days McIlroy hit just 10 of 28 fairways and particularly struggled in an opening 74. He would make the cut on one over but was ranked 35th in Strokes Gained off the tee.

Rory McIlroy hits his tee shot on the fourth hole during the first round of the US. Open golf tournament

The Masters champion didn’t talk to the media for a second straight day, most likely because he didn’t want to discuss his driver problems and partly because of his ordinary scoring. There is no question here about anything untoward but it would be the last thing that you want to discuss on the eve of a Major.

Nothing has been confirmed, the only reason this came to light was because SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio reported this, but the PGA of America did release a statement after the USGA were invited to test drivers this week.

“The standard process is for about a third of the field to be randomly tested under the program. That was the case at Quail Hollow this week,” said PGA of America chief championships officer Kerry Haigh.

“Finding driver heads that have crept over the line of conformance is not an unusual occurrence, especially for clubs that are hit thousands of times over a long period of time. The results are kept confidential to protect players, who are unaware the club has fallen out of conformance and not responsible for it falling out of conformance other than hitting the club thousands of times.

“Players are simply asked to change heads if necessary, and all do without issue. To publicly identify players whose club did not conform can lead to that player being questioned unnecessarily. Neither the USGA nor the PGA of America have any concerns about player intent.”