Collin Morikawa has been convinced to change his driver for the first time in a while, but the choice he has made is raising some eyebrows.
Morikawa has made the shift to using the TaylorMade Qi10 driver range, but it is his choice within that range that is remarkable.
The two-time Major winner has opted to take up TaylorMade’s latest game improvement driver.
The TaylorMade Qi10 Max has yet to be commercially released, but Morikawa has been trialling it since late last year.
Morikawa is delighted with a customised edition of the Max which will also see him return to using a lighter-weight Mitsubishi GT 50TX shaft, again something he last did some time ago.
According to Morikawa, the choice is the result of working alongside TaylorMade to find the perfect driver for his game.
“Yeah, I am [switching into the Qi10 Max driver],” Morikawa told GolfWRX.
“I got a lot of crazy looks from the guys when I said I wanted the Max.
“The TaylorMade guys have been amazing. They’ve obviously modified a bunch of heads, put in weights everywhere, try to match up the CGs.”
After some trial and error with shafts, Morikawa has found that he is striking his drives very well.
“The SIM has been amazing for me,” he added.
“It’s a shallower head, not a deep head or a long head from front to back. It’s pretty shallow compared to the new ones.
“That’s always something I’ve liked. Even though this face is the same as all the other ones – the Qi10 LS version and the regular core version – visually it looks shallower because of how long the head is. I tried this one [Max] with a different shaft.
“I actually haven’t switched shafts in a long time since Harding Park [2020 US PGA win] – a week before Harding Park was FedEx St Jude, I switched to the 60g Diamana D-Plus, which I played for a while. I switched to another profile of a Diamana, a little lighter version, and I’ve just been finding the centre.”
Morikawa has explained that his version of the Max isn’t quite the same as the commercial game-improvement iron, which is designed to help players who struggle to get the ball in the air off the tee.
He further commended the feel and sound of the new club and feels that the extra forgiveness adds another dimension to his game when he isn’t striking it as well as he might on another day.
“Sound and feel is huge,” Morikawa added.
“I’ve got a lot of hot melt in this head. The Max is made for someone who needs to get the ball up in the air and needs the spin, I have to explain to everyone that I have the amateur version.
“But no, I truly it, and the feel with the hot melt and everything in it and back and forth is softened up a little bit, and the mis-hits have been great. I’m excited to put it in play.”
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