Inside Rory McIlroy’s connector-sized TaylorMade Qi4D driver: WATCH

If you haven’t had a chance to watch Episode 1 of the TaylorMade Tour featuring Adrian Rietveld, I encourage you to watch it here. The video will give you an appreciation of the level of detail that tour partners provide to ensure that any club they place in a player’s hands is done professionally.

Like a world-class chess player, a top player (like Rietveld, the equal of Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood, among other stars) will make strategic moves to push and put the player in the right setup. It’s a craft that takes years to perfect and, no, it’s not a “who knows the data” contest — it’s a competition. to obey again to watch competition. Good clubs help but I’ve seen the best clubs overcome the shortcomings of some brands.

After our estimation (which you can watch in the video below), I asked Adrian to give me a glimpse of what he found suitable for me for the first time. I left The Kingdom that day thinking that the process went well but it was important for me to find honesty in the person himself. It’s not often that someone who works so hard sits down and writes his thoughts afterwards so this was a unique opportunity to get into AD’s head.

I hope you learn a lot from what he wrote below – insightful stuff.

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Inside Johnny Wunder’s TaylorMade is the ideal driver

by Adrian Rietveld, TaylorMade CEO of the PGA Tour

As a fitness professional, what I learned about Johnny is that he is an amazing player but he also has years of ingrained habits. For that reason, I have deliberately avoided anything extreme or instructive during the rating. My role was to develop the equipment to exactly match his physical characteristics, swing characteristics and swing tendencies – no more, no less. When I gave a teaching tip, I walked up to the height of the tee.

I decided to take Johnny as far as I could from his usual mistakes. This approach quickly settled him down, removed any anxiety and helped him trust the club in his hands. Johnny’s greatest strength is his unique ability to generate speed and – perhaps more surprisingly – his ability to repeat his swing at a high level with accuracy and consistency. Honestly, that’s the club coach’s dream: He knows exactly what he’s working with. His ability to get speed and rebound allowed me to understand the impact and geometry of the club so completely that we were able to eliminate his weakness before it even started.

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To be honest, the qualification went better than I expected. Johnny is still a strong player who uses high level equipment, and has had many high level installations in the past. My competitive side walked away believing I could get some benefits, but I knew it would depend on identifying what really mattered to him and channeling that development in the right direction.

What exceeded my expectations was that every parameter in which I was hoping to get small edges ended up bringing a noticeable improvement. I could read it in his body language and I saw it during the flight of the ball early. We got strong results so quickly that I had more time to continue refining things and exploring more viable options. That amazing feeling as a modeler: You have a fixed window, and you often run to maximize it just to achieve the best possible result. In this case, I can use full time not only to develop but also to give Johnny an honest choice – to build his identity and confidence when he enters the course.

A few key achievements stand out. First, we completely eliminated his single direction miss. From a scientific point of view, that effectively widens the fairway and creates a greater margin for error. That reduced steering variability builds confidence, which in turn unlocks more speed and overall performance.

Second, we didn’t reinvent the wheel. Johnny was already comfortable with certain club parameters – such as grip, length and swing weight – so I kept those standard features tight and focused on subtle adjustments that he wouldn’t notice visually, such as lie angle, face angle and center of gravity. These tweaks brought great results without affecting his experience.

Third – and this had the biggest impact – I used the technology in the TaylorMade Qi4D driver (which is often referred to in the installation as a standout in its class). The driver delivers exceptional spin-rate consistency on all faces. This allowed me to confidently put more loft in his hands without the penalty of excessive spin.

Johnny has historically played very poor drivers because he spent years trying to control and suppress spin. For the first time, spin deviation is no longer a concern – he can rely on head performance to keep things stable and predictable. That product feature was a major asset in this fit; it gave me the freedom to develop many other things without fear, making the whole process exceptionally rewarding. In my opinion, this variable spin is probably the main reason Johnny would choose this driver over anything else he tested. The speed was an added bonus.

Final Result:

TaylorMade QI4D (Core) 8 degrees
Weight: 2X 9g back, 2X 5g forward
FCT sleeve: Set up to straighten at a false 61-degree angle
Swing Weight: D4
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Black Velo+ 6X Tipped 5/8 @45.25 EOG
Holding: Golf Pride Tour Velvet 58R 2 DBL Side

Average swing speed: 110.2
Speed ​​of the ball: 163.7 MPH
Introduce: 11.3 degrees
spin: 2396 RPM
Smash: 1.48 (BS/SS) on TrackMan

Johnny’s first real test will be in Hammock Beach, Florida, this weekend for the annual Battle on The Beach, there’s nothing like a tournament to test out a new club(s).

Do you want to find the best driver for your wallet in 2026? Find a club fit near you at True Spec Golf.