Tommy Fleetwood won his sixth DP Tour title at the Dubai Invitational last weekend to give the new Qi10 driver its first professional victory.
Fleetwood defeated Rory McIlroy by a small margin in a Team TaylorMade final round faceoff.
With his new Qi10 LS, he hit 57% of the fairways and averaged 313 yards off the tee all week.
He drove the ball on a string with the low spin variant of TaylorMade’s most forgiving driver yet.
That forgiveness is still a feature on the LS version which is typically intended to be used by professionals and better players who aim for distance and control.
“The biggest gains for Tommy with the Qi10 comes with really tight spin rates, especially on misses,” said TaylorMade Senior Tour Rep Adrian Rietveld. “On misses, Tommy would normally get 3100-3200 spin, on this one he’s getting 2700, which is huge for him because it means the distance is there. He’s still getting a little bit of roll out of it.
“On the flush shots, he’s gone from 10.5 or 11° launch at 2,600 spin, to now at 12° launch at 2,400 spin. When you add that up, that’s a real game changer for him.”
Throughout the week, Fleetwood’s approach performance with his TaylorMade P·7TW irons and TP5x pix golf ball was particularly impressive. He finished first in strokes gained tee-to-green at +3.88, third in strokes gained approach at +2.18, and first in greens in regulations at 82%.
Looking further into the statistics reveals that Fleetwood had a lot of game-changing performances over the week. It’s hardly surprising that the total equaled victory when you factor in everything from the distance off the tee to taking the lead in the GIR%.
The standout club in his bag is an outlier as a Titleist made 60 degree Vokey wedge, the most popular club on tour, aslo finds a place in his bag.
He also makes the unusual choice of deploying a mini-driver something rare among pros. He uses the TaylorMade BRNR Mini Driver.
“For me, if I HAD to hit a fairway, I’m more comfortable hitting a driver than a 3-wood,” Fleetwood explains.
“I would tee the driver down, and I would hit a little cut, or a neck-y cut in the fairway. The 3-wood isn’t for that. The 3-wood, generally, is a pretty hot club that I’ll hit from 270 or 280 in the fairway on a par 5.
“You get some courses where a 3-wood is not always that necessary. [With the BRNR] you put a normal swing on it, and it goes a little shorter than a driver, and I’m more comfortable hitting it straight. It’s a replacement for a 3-wood, basically.
“You could almost think of it in terms of wedges at the low end of the bag. Some people have four wedges, some people only have three, and they have to manufacture a 52 to go 100 yards, or 105 yards. There are different shots. That’s effectively what you do with your main driver, you’d be manufacturing it to hit that shot in the fairway, which is great, but maybe you want something you can just hit.
“You can still hit it off the ground, and it goes a very similar distance to a 3-wood. It spins enough. It’s not a deep enough face where it’s so far off the bottom that the ball doesn’t rise. So you get a pretty decent strike, enough to get in the air. It’s a big-head 2-wood really.
“For me, I remember the TaylorMade Burner in 1998. It was my first ever proper driver. Lee Janzen did a clinic, when he was the U.S. Open champ, and it was the Open at Birkdale. I was 7. Some juniors could go up and hit a shot and they gave you like a Burner driver, and I went up and hit a shot, and I got a Burner. It was my first ever proper driver.”
Tommy Fleetwood’s Championship-winning bag at Dubai Invitational
Driver: TaylorMade Q10 LS (9 degrees @8.5)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus TR Blue 6 X (45 1/8 inches, tipped 1 inch)
Mini driver: TaylorMade BRNR Mini Driver (13.5 degrees @12)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus TR Blue 6 X
5-wood: TaylorMade Qi10 LS (18 degrees)
Shaft: Mitsubishi Kuro Kage 80 XTS X
Irons: TaylorMade P7TW (3-PW)
Shafts: Project X 125 6.5
Wedges: TaylorMade Hi-Toe 3 (52), Titleist Vokey Design WedgeWorks Proto (60-T)
Shafts: True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400
Putter: Odyssey White Hot Pro 3
Grip: SuperStroke Mid Slim 2.0
Grips: Golf Pride Tour Velvet Cord, Iomic
Ball: TaylorMade TP5x pix
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