Rory McIlroy has for years been one of the longest drivers on the PGA Tour, but if you have ever wondered how far he hits his other clubs, now we know. The folks at TaylorMade recently posted a video of McIlroy working his way through seven clubs in his bag, with distances included for each:
We don’t know the precise distances of his other six clubs, but by extrapolating from the seven we do know, we still can get a good estimate of his full bag:
*Approximate distances extrapolated from yardages featured in video above.
With such consistent distance gaps through his set, the one thing that stands out for McIlroy is the gapping he has between his wedges and the corresponding lofts. Most golfers on the PGA Tour gap their wedges in 4-5° increments, but McIlroy has a full 8° between his 46° pitching wedge and 54° sand wedge.
The gap doesn’t seem to be causing any issues for McIlroy, and the extra effort put into his wedge game over the last couple of years seems to be working nicely — last season he ranked 5th on tour in proximity for 125-150 yards, at 19′ 8″.
Another elite player with a big loft gap between his pitching wedge and sand wedge: Tiger Woods, who uses a 48° pitching wedge and a 56° sand wedge.
Rory McIlroy’s clubs as of the 2022 Tour Championship
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Ryan Barath is GOLF Magazine and GOLF.com’s senior editor for equipment. He has an extensive club-fitting and -building background with more than 20 years of experience working with golfers of all skill levels, including PGA Tour players. Before joining the staff, he was the lead content strategist for Tour Experience Golf, in Toronto, Canada.