Rory McIlroy has a new TaylorMade prototype 4-iron in the bag for this week’s Valero Texas Open as he gears up for another go at completing the career Grand Slam at Augusta National.
With The Masters fast approaching, the Northern Irishman has been fine-tuning his game in a bid to land one of the sport’s few prizes that has eluded him, the Green Jacket.
That included a visit to the Kingdom, TaylorMade’s state-of-the-art club-fitting facility in California, where the best TaylorMade irons are regularly put through their paces.
Specifically, McIlroy was looking to make an adjustment to his iron set-up and found what he was looking for, as he explained on the eve of his third appearance in the Texas Open.
“I needed to get into a fresh set of irons, my irons were like two years old maybe, so they were getting a little worn,” McIlroy said. “Yeah, I went out, spent a couple of days with the TaylorMade guys at the Kingdom.
“They just produced these couple of protos, I guess like are they the MC replacements. I'm not sure what they're actually going to be called, I have no idea. They performed really well.
“It's just as fast as the 760 that I was using. Launch is a little higher actually, which was surprising, and it's just sometimes I felt like when I hit my 5-iron in the blade and then the 4-iron in the 760 it was such a different feel.
“To go from a 5-iron now to that 4-iron, it feels a little closer to what I feel in the 5-iron.
“So just a little bit more responsive, but didn't lose any performance from it, which is great. Yeah, it will be in the bag this week.”
McIlroy has struggled to put four rounds together on the PGA Tour this season after his hot start on the DP World Tour in January. A tie for 19th at The Players Championship is his best finish Stateside after he struggled to build on an opening 65.
That prompted the 34-year-old to seek the advice of Butch Harmon at the veteran coach’s base in Las Vegas, admitting his swing feels more “cohesive” as a result.
“I think my game's shown signs of life in all different departments over the course of the year,” McIlroy added. Some weeks the driving's good, some weeks the irons are good. Just sort of trying to put it all together.
“There was some signs of life at TPC [Sawgrass], but I feel like I've worked hard over the last couple of weeks and I've made some pretty big strides, especially with some of the things I was struggling with.
“That's why this week is a great week to tee it up and see sort of where the last couple weeks of work has sort of gotten me.”
