Rory McIlroy switches gears ahead of season debut: ‘That experiment is over’

Rory McIlroy’s bag looks a lot more like Rory McIlroy’s bag again.

After experimenting with a group of TaylorMade P7CB Cavity Back for the past couple of months and raging behind them, McIlroy has made the somewhat shocking decision to return to his RORS PROTO wheels this week for his PGA Tour season debut at Pebble Beach.

“That experiment is over, back to the reliable irons that I’ve played basically my whole career,” McIlroy said.

McIlroy first made the change at the start December entering long cuffs P7CB at the Australian Open. He liked the interaction and forgiveness of the terrain so much that he went and put in the full 9-iron of the P7CB by the weekend. He carried them in his bag during his January appearances on TGL and the first two official starts of the season in Dubai on the DP World Tour.

“If there’s help to be had, I’ll definitely take it,” McIlroy said at the Dubai Invitational. “And even in Dubai at the end of last year, I hit a couple of 5-irons that I hit a little bit wrong, and instead of it coming maybe five or seven yards short, it was more like 10 to 15 yards short.”

But when he arrived at Pebble Beach this week for his PGA Tour season debut, his RORS PROTOs that he’s used almost exclusively since signing with TaylorMade were back in the bag.

For McIlroy, the decision wasn’t about the hole’s back-forgiving release conditions, but rather the distribution pattern. McIlroy said he began to notice a fair bias.

“So whether it was the head weight or whether it was the length of the blade,” said McIlroy, this week’s defending champion, “I would take swings that I felt like I would make with my blades that would be a very neutral ball flight and then with the back of the cavity they would just want to start tailing right.”

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That’s not inherently a bad thing for McIlroy, who doesn’t like to see the ball go left. While the P7CB is a compact hollow back iron designed to give a blade player like McIlroy a more forgiving option without compromising looks or performance, it has a slightly longer blade length than the RORS PROTO.

While it may not be the sole cause of McIlroy’s perceived right bias, a longer blade length will slow the rate of closure through impact, making it easier to leave the clubface slightly open.

McIlroy initially liked the right bias in practice, but once he started playing more competitively, he realized it was unnatural for him.

“It made me feel like I could fully release like my iron shots, which is great in theory and great in practice, but then once you get on the course with a card in hand, for so many years I’ve been used to feeling like a stable position through impact and then going from that to trying to release it, it was just a different feeling, especially under pressure or in the heat of competition,” he said. “It just didn’t feel as familiar as I wanted.”

Does this really mean the end of McIlroy’s experimentation with the hollow back? Maybe not.

In fact, this was probably a very useful experiment for McIlroy and TaylorMade. Both sides know McIlroy wants the extra forgiveness, but now they know he needs a head that doesn’t require him to change his swing tendencies, even if he thought he might like it.

Taking a bit of fair bias out of P7CB it shouldn’t be too difficult, whether it’s shortening the length of the blade or moving the weight a little closer to the hose. Maybe that will be the goal TaylorMade’s next hollow back iron now that they know McIlroy is open to change.

If McIlroy’s experimentation tells us anything, it’s that his blades can still find their way out of the bag at the right time.

The author welcomes your comments at Jack.Hirsh@golf.com.

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