‘I still stare at it’: Rory McIlroy names his favorite golf club of all time

Golf clubs come and golf clubs go. While amateurs may hang on to a driver or set of irons for years before replacing them, pros often swap out most of their bags for the newest models every season. Rory McIlroy is no different.

The four-time major champion has been a TaylorMade staff player since Nike shuttered its golf club business in 2016. His bag is complete with many of the latest and greatest offerings from TaylorMade, from the driver all the way down to his putter and golf ball.

But of the many golf clubs McIlroy has used over his long career, from TaylorMade and otherwise, which was his absolute favorite?

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You might never get that answer from many Tour pros currently in the game. But Rory is different. And when the question was posed to him following his second round at the 2025 Genesis Invitational, he gave up the goods in his trademark honest and funny manner.

“Favorite club of all time? Wow,” McIlroy said, repeating the question on Friday night at Torrey Pines.

The 27-time Tour winner then took a beat to think through the question, and in his eyes you could almost see him mentally picking through the pile of old golf clubs in his garage at home.

Then he gave his answer.

“Probably the M2 driver,” Rory said, referring to TaylorMade’s M2 driver.

The club was one of the company’s two flagship drivers, along with the M1, that went on sale in early 2017. The M2 ended up in the bags of Tour pros like McIlroy in late 2016, but the timing is interesting. With Nike having stopped making clubs that same year, the M2 was likely one of the first non-Nike drivers McIlroy played in years.

But why does the M2 rank above the rest?

“I just like, I still stare at it in my garage sometimes, like, I wish I could still use you sometimes,” McIlroy joked on Friday. “But it’s probably illegal at this point.”

McIlroy currently games TaylorMade’s Qi10 driver. He also plays Qi10 woods, along with TaylorMade Rors Proto irons, MG4 wedges, a Spider Tour X putter and a TaylorMade TP5 golf ball.

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And while he may miss the M2, his current gear is serving him quite well. In his first PGA Tour start of the year at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, he won.

This week’s Genesis Invitational is his second start, and at the halfway point McIlroy is in solo-fourth, three shots off the lead.