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When Rory McIlroy first stepped into the TaylorMade Qi10 driver he went with the LS (low spin version).
He had it in the bag when he closed out the 2023 Harry Vardon Trophy by coming out on top in the Race to Dubai for the fifth time but this year he had a different driver model in the bag.
At the Dubai Desert Classic in January, McIlroy will claim his 17th win on the DP World Tour with the powerful combination of the new Qi10 driver and the 2024 TP5x ball.
He led the driving distance stats, averaging 330 yards and after that he said he preferred the look and feel of the bigger head.
The Qi10 launches higher than the LS while the new TP5x ball has a higher bottom height. McIlroy will also add 3 and 5 Qi10 fairway woods.
At the end of April he will again hold the Zurich Classic of New Orleans with Shane Lowry and, two weeks later, a fourth victory at Quail Hollow.
In testing he found the center of the clubface more, due to more forgiveness in the Qi10 compared to the Qi10 LS. Then he went back to a longer driver shaft, 45 inches from 44, to add a few extra yards over the new forgiveness.
“I played a 45-inch driver for most of my career so I felt like there was no reason why I couldn't hit a 45-inch driver and do what I wanted to do with it,” McIlroy said.
“The thing that made me comfortable going back to a slightly longer shaft was the profile of this Qi10 head. I just think the bigger profile of the Qi10 with the longer shaft looks good to me and I can easily find a middle ground with it.”
McIlroy started in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee (6.1) and Driving Distance at 337 yards. He would hit six drives for over 350 yards and 32 drives for over 325 yards.
At the following week's PGA Championship McIlroy would go so far as to say that the Qi10 is the best driver he has ever hit.
“To be honest, he's probably the best driver I've had in the last few years. I'm really comfortable with the driver, and I think some of the technical aspects of my swing are a little bit better – the good drives are still pretty good but the bad drives aren't so bad so it misses like crazy.”
McIlroy has a driver set at 8.25˚ and has a Ventus Black 6X machine.
The goal with the Qi10 family is to make each driver as forgiving as possible, using advanced multi-material construction to increase inertia, and provide a balanced combination of distance and forgiveness.
Its development from its predecessor includes a lower center of gravity and more forgiveness and the Infinity Carbon Crown covers 97 percent of the entire area of the crown, which helps to redistribute the platform and, again, improve forgiveness.
McIlroy will close the 2024 PGA Tour season ranked second in Driving Distance and fourth in Total Driving which measures both distance and accuracy.
READ MORE: 5 reasons to try the Qi10 Max driver – TaylorMade's most forgiving driver
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