Scottie Scheffler’s surprise (and unique) TaylorMade driver switch | Tour Report

Welcome to Fully Equipped’s weekly Tour equipment report. Every Friday of PGA Tour weeks (plus other times, if news warrants), GOLF equipment editor Jack Hirsh runs you through some of the biggest news surrounding golf clubs on Tour, including changes, tweaks and launches.

Scottie Scheffler has been the best driver in the game for the past four seasons. He’s third in SG: Off-The-Tee this year on the PGA Tour and he hasn’t lost strokes off the tee in a PGA Tour event since June 2025. In each of the previous three seasons, he’s ranked top-2 in the stat.

For the better part of the last three seasons, that performance has come with a trusty TaylorMade Qi10 driver to which Scheffler has seemed to form an emotional connection.

But all good things must come to an end.

At this week’s FedEx St. Jude Championship, the first leg of the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup Playoffs, Scheffler made a surprise switch, swapping out his TaylorMade Qi10 for TaylorMade’s new Qi4D driver.

It’s the second time this season Scheffler has deployed the Qi4D in a tournament — he first did so at the Arnold Palmer Invitational — but he also used it in the Bahamas at the unofficial Hero World Challenge last December.

Both moves lasted just one tournament before Scheffler returned to the Qi10 driver he’s won 16 times with around the world, including three major titles and an Olympic Gold Medal.

What’s interesting about the move is that Scheffler’s Qi4D has a couple of unique modifications.

The first is a blue face, which was also a feature on the Qi4D drivers Scheffler used at Bay Hill and the Hero. The blue face mimics the one from Scheffler’s beloved Qi10, but it’s also not something TaylorMade does exclusively for him.

While Scheffler is the only player on the Tour who has used a blue-faced Qi4D this season, TaylorMade has several different face optics they can use for different players on the Qi4D. For instance, both Tommy Fleetwood and Rory McIlroy’s drivers have reflective markers built into the face. Fleetwood’s driver is the standard dark gray available at retail, while McIlroy’s is a brighter color TaylorMade calls the “light face” option, which is meant to help players see the loft better.

TaylorMade conducted testing with their staff players last August using heads with magnetic face attachments to see which optics they preferred.

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ALSO AVAILABLE AT: PGA TOUR Superstore, TaylorMade

When TaylorMade launched its carbon-face drivers with the Stealth family back in 2022, the MyStealth program offered consumers the ability to pick a custom color for their driver faces. It was advertised as a benefit of the carbon face technology.

While that was purely a cosmetic idea, it’s not unreasonable to think TaylorMade may unveil a custom program for driver face optics in the not-too-distant future (I know nothing of any plans to do so; this is me speculating).

The other modification to Scheffler’s driver is more unusual, with a glossy crown replacing the matte look on all other Qi4Ds. Again, this mirrors the Qi10, which was the last glossy crown driver TaylorMade released.

In his opening round 68 at TPC Southwind, Scheffler gained more than a shot on the field OTT, with the new big stick ranking 10th for the round, despite hitting just four fairways. Six of those missed fairways weren’t big misses. They wound up in the first cut, something Scheffler noted in his post-round press conference.

But Scheffler wasn’t asked directly about the new driver, so we’ll have to wait to learn more about what motivated the switch.

Harris English’s Hohum days might be over

Ping’s Scottsdale TEC line of putters gained a new convert this week and it’s a player Ping never thought would even consider a move: Harris English.

“I never thought we’d be having a conversation about Harris changing putters,” Ping Tour Rep Kenton Oates told GOLF. “I assumed, honestly, that he would use his Hohum for the rest of his entire career.”

English has played a Scottsdale Hohum putter, originally released in 2010, since his senior year of college at Georgia, with just a few exceptions. He’s had little reason to consider a change. English has been a mainstay in the top-20 of the PGA Tour’s Strokes Gained: Putting rankings every year since 2018.

He was 6th in the stat before heading across the pond for the Genesis Scottish Open, but has lost strokes in each of his four events since, falling to 27th in the standings.

That led him to start looking for a new flatstick in Detroit, where he also revealed something shocking to the Ping Tour team.

PING Scottsdale TEC Ketsch 4 Custom Putter

Designed to fit a strong-arc player, the Scottsdale TEC Ketsch 4 features greater toe hang due to the Anser 4-style hosel, a common request from Tour pros. Together with Eye Q Technology (a new alignment-aid feature designed to promote more consistent gaze patterns), a long line and two short ball-width lines make aiming the Ketsch 4 even easier. The PEBAX insert delivers a softer feel and consistent distance control.

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ALSO AVAILABLE AT: PGA TOUR Superstore

“In Detroit, we discovered that he’s been using at home, and brought with him a practice putter, and that practice putter was a Ping PAL,” Oates said.

English loved everything about the old Pal, which dates back to the ’70s and Oates estimated weighs a scant 295 grams, some 60 grams less than modern standards. That lightness helped produce a feel and feedback that English enjoyed.

While it wasn’t practical for English to bring out the five-decade-old putter on the PGA Tour, Ping rep Jeff Brown suggested building some new putters with Anser-style hosels like that of the Pal to try and replicate the feel.

English got the putters, which included a Scottsdale TEC Ketsch H that week at the Rocket Classic, but didn’t do much work with them before taking them home. Oates thought the experiment was over and that the Hohum would live to fight another day.

Then, after losing nearly 3.5 strokes putting in the opening round at the Wyndham, English brought out the Ketsch H for Friday and rallied to a 66 and gained 1.8 strokes putting.

English worked with Ping’s Tony Serrano again this week in Memphis testing more options with both inserts and milled faces, Anser-hosels and double bends, but ultimately ended up sticking with the Ketsch H and was rewarded with 2.4 SG: Putting (6th for the day) in an opening-round 68.

Ultimately, it was the Scottsdale TEC’s PEBAX insert that won him over.

“He loved the insert. Felt like his speed control was just way better with the insert of the Scottsdale TEC,” Oates said. “We had made him custom inserts throughout these last 10 years, and we just could never really dial in a feel that he loved off the face. So the fact that he really loves the stock Scottsdale TEC insert was a home run for us.”

And that’s a big reason why Oates thinks this change is permanent rather than a temporary change of pace.

“I think the Hohum may be dead because he goes back and hits the Hohum and he goes, ‘I don’t like the way it feels anymore,’” Oates said.

Akshay Bhatia’s new ‘4-iron’

Akshay Bhatia’s newest 4-iron replacement may hold the record for the shortest Fujikura Ventus part on the PGA Tour.

Bhatia has alternated a few times this season between a Callaway X Forged UT 4-iron and a 21˚ Apex UW ’25 for that spot in the bag, specifically having the UW built for the ultra-firm and fast conditions at the Masters.

With blazing hot and dry conditions in Memphis this week, he’s again tested a 21˚ UW, but this one is nearly an inch shorter at 38.5″. That’s 2.25″ shorter than the stock retail length and the same length as his regular UT 4-iron.

Callaway 2025 Apex Custom Utility Wood

The Apex UW is designed for serious, avid golfers seeking the perfect blend of a fairway wood’s power and a hybrid’s versatility. Engineered with Tour feedback and loaded with performance technologies, it delivers a higher, more neutral ball flight with the control all players demand.  TUNGSTEN SPEED WAVE A dynamic, 41g+ tungsten wave structure positions mass low and forward, enhancing ball speed and launch—particularly on low-face strikes where players tend to lose distance. STEP SOLE DESIGN A redesigned sole with a stepped geometry reduces turf interaction, helping to maintain swing speed through impact and promoting more consistent contact across different lies. TRIAXIAL CARBON CROWN The lightweight carbon construction allows for strategic weight redistribution, creating a more forgiving clubhead while refining launch and spin for greater shot-making control. TOUR-INSPIRED SHAPING Designed with input from the world’s best, the compact, refined shape and neutral face angle inspire confidence at address and deliver workability from tee to turf.

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ALSO AVAILABLE AT: PGA TOUR Superstore, Callaway

“It’s something we’ve done throughout the year, but we made one shorter this week,” Callaway Tour rep Zach Smith said. “Same length as his 4-iron, 38.5″. It was a touch more consistent with spin. Ball speed was a little tighter and obviously hits it a little higher.”

I can’t help but wonder what caddie Joe Greiner’s role in this is. Before Bhatia hired Greiner in December 2025, it was Greiner who suggested that Collin Morikawa try a 9-wood last season, a path that ultimately led Morikawa to using a TaylorMade P-DHY driving iron as his 4-iron, just like Bhatia uses the X Forged UT. Greiner’s longtime boss before that, Max Homa, also tested a 9-wood when the pair was still together in 2024.

Ultimately, Bhatia stayed the course with his UT as his 4-iron, but credit to Smith and at the Callaway team for trying something different to get more peak height out of the top end of the bag.

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Odds and Ends

Some other gear changes and notes we’re tracking this week.

Ben Griffin became the first player on the PGA Tour to game TaylorMade’s Qi4D Max driver last week at the Wyndham. He continues to use that driver this week in Memphis with a Ventus TR Blue shaft… Nico Echavarria added Ping’s Mini Proto … Justin Rose and Michael Thorbjornsen added TaylorMade Qi4D 5-woods this week while Maverick McNealy added a 3-wood … Sam Burns re-inserted his Callaway Apex UW 21˚ … Keith Mitchell added the trendy Scotty Cameron Phantom 9.5R … Ryo Hisatsune added a 13.5˚ TaylorMade R7 Quad Mini … Matt Fitzpatrick switched to a Titleist TSi3 driver … Cameron Young returned to his Vokey K* lob wedge after playing a 64T bent to 62˚ since the U.S. Open.