A look inside the Tour-fitting process for TaylorMade's Qi35 drivers, featuring Tommy Fleetwood, Nelly Korda and Collin Morikawa.
TaylorMade
A video launched today on TaylorMade’s YouTube channel and it’s a really interesting look into a Tour fitting. While it didn’t cover every facet of a fitting, the 10-minute video — which features stars Tommy Fleetwood, Collin Morikawa and Nelly Korda getting fit for a Qi35 driver — had a bunch of fun little nuggets you can utilize to help you pick a driver. Here are my takeaways.
Find a driver that puts ownership in your hands
In the Fleetwood portion of the video, he discusses how modern drivers have become right-biased or anti-left, causing him to have to adjust to hit his desired shot shape, which is a draw. One of the reasons you see players like Fleetwood and Rory McIlroy go to a higher MOI head is because the start line is straighter, the spin allows the ball to curve and the CG promotes something straight or right to left. What Fleetwood noticed was with the Qi35 (Dot) he wasn’t fighting a right miss. He knew he could take a full rip at it and the ball would start on line and fall back to the left. Some of the lower-spin models can produce some really fun launch monitor data but can they produce trust? On Tour that trust is what matters on the 72nd hole.
“It’s definitely more common these days that you get a driver that, this driver doesn’t go left or this driver doesn’t do that or this driver won’t spin up,” Fleetwood said. “It’s very rare that you get one that you can say, I can do what I want here. This is me that gets to choose to hit the shot. Couple that with good distance, good launch and good spin … it sounds good.”
How you tee it and the balance point of your driver matters
This was something I found really interesting when watching Tour Rep Ryan Ressa work with Korda. She tees it lower to promote a steeper angle of attack but is also a drawer of the golf ball. This can cause some issues in regards to fitting, as the common miss with a player like Nelly is a center-thin strike — i.e. a groove or two low, which can decrease ball speed and crank up spin, making the flight less efficient. With the new Qi35 having a lower balance point, it actually enhances that strike for Nelly, allowing her to go at it a little harder when she needs and giving her trust that if she doesn’t catch it perfectly, the ball speed and spin will stay in an optimal window.
It’s also noteworthy that the Qi35 launches a hair higher than her previous gamer, and for Nelly, organic launch (she doesn’t have to help) is a huge plus. Keeping the good and enhancing the not so good will always get a club in play. Take the overall ball-speed gain out of it for a minute. If all she gained was a more efficient lower strike while everything else stayed the same, that’s a huge performance gain for someone like Nelly.
As I’ve mentioned before, performance these days is found in the nuance. That’s the case here and to be honest it’s a huge “golf course” upgrade. This will matter on the course when it counts.
I knew this was a serious thing when I heard they were doing it, especially for the Tour. If you’ve been in a fitting house that uses Foresight Quad, I’m sure you’ve seen the stickers they put on the face to map strike point, path and other fun data points. The thing is, it’s not guaranteed that the stickers go on the perfect part of the face every time. Some may argue it doesn’t matter but it does. But to have static data markers on the face that are exactly the same head to head tells 100 percent of the story. Can you get really good data the other way? Sure. But for Tour players it’s a huge benefit to keep that variable the same head to head.
Parting thoughts
One of the things I really admire about TaylorMade’s Tour process (via Adrian Rietveld, Todd Chew, Ryan Ressa and Keith Sbarboro) is the idea that the drivers they fit their players into seem to take on the personality of that player. When I have Fleetwood’s driver in my hands I can see his influence in it. At address I can see why Tommy specifically likes one setup over the other. Not to say that other OEMs don’t do the same, but I just really see it with TaylorMade staff players. If it’s a Morikawa or Scottie Scheffler driver, I see the fades. With Rory and Tommy I see the draws. That’s really cool.
Johnny currently serves as the Director of Equipment at Golf.com, contributing to platforms like Fully Equipped Golf. Prior to this role, he was the Content Marketing Manager at Callaway Golf, where he led “Callaway Golf’s World of Wunder,” a platform dedicated to in-depth golf equipment content. Before joining Callaway, he was the Director of Original Content and host of “The Gear Dive” podcast at GolfWRX.com. Beyond his professional endeavors, Johnny is an avid golfer with a deep passion for the game, having played since his youth in Seattle, Washington.
