Rory McIlroy is pulling out all the stops in his quest to complete the Grand Slam at the 2024 Masters. He has changed his schedule leading up to the event, playing more tournaments than ever before, and he has even spent some time with legendary coach, Butch Harmon. But now it seems that he might even be adding a very interesting new club to his bag to tackle Augusta National.
During Tuesday's practice round, we spotted Rory with a TaylorMade BRNR Mini Driver in his bag, which is something we have never seen before from Rory. The BRNR Mini Driver has shot to prominence in the bag of Tommy Fleetwood and recent PGA Tour winner Jake Knapp, while Phil Mickelson had a previous iteration of it in his bag for his 2021 PGA Championship triumph at Kiawah Island.
With the overall length of Augusta National creeping up and up over the past few years, the addition of a “strong” fairway wood seems like it could be a smart play. From our testing of the BRNR Mini Driver, we found it could be used effectively from the ground but it really stood out from the tee.
It is unclear as to what holes Rory is planning on using the Mini Driver yet (if it makes it into the starting lineup at all), but my hunch would be possibly the 10th where a strong drawing tee shot is advantageous, but driver can run out of room, and possibly the 13th where the recently increased length makes it almost impossible to cut the corner from the tee now, but again, driver is in danger of running out.
We don’t know whether he is using the 11.5 or 13.5 model as yet, or indeed any specs, but we will keep you up to date as and when we find out.
Rory fans across the world will be hoping that this could be the catalyst to get him over the line in 2024 and join the elite of the game as a Grand Slam champion.
Update: It does not seem as though the MIni Driver has made it into McIlroy's bag for the first round at least. He has returned to his Qi10 3 wood at 15˚ fitted with a Fujikura Ventus Black 8X shaft.
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