Scottie Scheffler not playing TaylorMade’s latest driver for the second year in a row might be a story now, but it won’t be in a month or so.
Scheffler surprised many by reverting to his TaylorMade Qi10 driver, which has won him three majors and 14 PGA Tour events, last month at his season debut at the American Express. That was after debuting the new Qi4D at the Hero World Challenge in his previous start in December and that month’s Golf Channel Games. He would, of course, end up winning in Palm Springs.
This week, Scheffler showed up at TPC Scottsdale on Monday and went straight to work with TaylorMade’s Adrian Rietveld and coach Randy Smith on testing the new driver. The trio, and caddie Ted Scott, spent several hours on the range, with several different Qi4D heads and different Fujikura Ventus Black shafts looking for “the one.”
After his round on Friday, where Scheffler stormed back from a two-over opening day with a six-under 65 to make the cut, he gave us a peek into the process.
“I’m a little bit adverse to change as it is, and I have got a driver in my bag that’s won quite a lot of golf tournaments; had a lot of success with it,” Scheffler said. “It’s just one of those things that is tough. I’m not going to put anything in the bag unless I feel it’s better. We are getting really close. There are some improvements I’ve for sure seen in the new driver. It just hasn’t gotten quite where it needs to be in order for me to put it in competition.”
With the level of success Scheffler has had with his Qi10, it makes sense he’d want to hang on to it. He said earlier this week that he becomes “emotionally attached” to certain clubs.
“Once you get a feel for a club, you know, I think feel is such a huge part of the game, so changing clubs can be difficult,” he said on Wednesday. “Even when I have the greatest club maker in the world make me a set of irons and he spec’d them and he’s checked every inch of them, I’ve got a guy at TaylorMade that takes great care of me, and even then I still find differences and still stuff that I got to get used to.”
Rietveld, that “guy at TaylorMade,” was one of the reasons Scheffler ended up signing with TaylorMade back in 2022, in the middle of his first four-victory run that culminated in his first Masters.
“It was like, hey, ‘I love the equipment, love the guys I’ve been able to work with,'” Scheffler said. “Adrian was one of the first people I worked with at the company. He takes care of everything for me. My clubs typically don’t start a tournament without him getting his eyes on them out here on the road.”
That’s why both Scheffler and Rietveld are taking their time to transition Scheffler into the new driver. Are there performance reasons to do so? Absolutely or else they wouldn’t even be bothering with it.
But when you have a guy like Scheffler, who is in the midst of a generational run in part because of the level of comfort he has with his clubs, making sure Scheffler is as comfortable as possible is the goal. Once he’s there, then the new driver, or any club, will go in the bag.
There’s a certain level of trust Scheffler has in Rietveld and the TaylorMade team, and they’ve learned a lot over years of working together. They’re going to get this one right.
The author welcomes your comments at Jack.Hirsh@golf.com.
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