Welp, that didn’t take long.
It was only a couple of weeks ago when we published this story talking about Rory McIlroy’s intriguing decision to play TaylorMade P7CB irons. He said the cavity-back irons offered more forgiveness on his mishits.
“If there’s help to be had, I’ll definitely take it,” McIlroy said last month. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while. And even in Dubai at the end of last year, I hit a couple of 5-irons that I mis-struck slightly, and instead of it maybe coming up five or seven yards short, it was coming up more like 10 to 15 yards short.”
This was a pretty shocking development given how McIlroy has exclusively played blades his entire career, save for a long-iron or two. He was coming off a great season so it seemed like an odd time to go full cavity-back with a club marketed more toward mere mortals.
In the blink of an eye, McIlroy is back to blades. His Rors Proto muscle-back irons are back in play this week at Pebble Beach.
“That experiment is over”
McIlroy is moving on after the cavity-back fell short of expectations.
He finished T14, T3 and T33 in his three starts on the DP World Tour with the P7CB irons.
“That experiment’s over,” McIlroy said Tuesday.
“I felt like the cavity-backs just had a little bit of a right bias in them. So whatever way the weight of the head was or whether it was the blade length, I would hit shots—I’d make swings that I feel like I’d make with my blades that would be a very neutral ball flight and then, with the cavity-backs, they would just like start to tail off to the right.”
McIlroy said he that, in theory, he didn’t mind shots tailing off to the right because he could “fully release the club” to minimize or get rid of that tail.
The problem came in the muscle memory. It just felt too different for him.
Ultimately, feel trumped forgiveness.
“For so many years, I’m used to feeling that like held-off position through impact and then to go from that to trying to release it, it just was a different feel, especially under pressure or in the heat of competition.”
So that is that. Back to the blades we go.
Blades still reign supreme in pro golf
So far this season, 10 out of the 13 winners on the PGA Tour and DP World Tour have used blades.
That’s not to say cavity-back irons don’t have their place at the highest level because there are certainly many players having success with them.
Wyndham Clark and Brian Harman won majors with Titleist 620 CBs. You can find plenty of examples of top pros who have success with cavity-backs.
It’s just another reason to keep an open mind when it comes to which irons you play.
What works for one player might not work for someone else.
Top Photo Caption: Rory McIlroy is back in blades. (GETTY IMAGES/Jason Butler)
Dennis10844
4 months ago
“What works for one player might not work for someone else.” Never have truer words been written. I distinctly remember buying a Taylormade 2-driving iron at 55 years old, because Jason Day played one in 2016, when he was ranked World #1. In golf. I never hit that 2i more than 10 feet off the ground off of a tee. However, the ball did roll almost forever!!