This gear constant has propelled Scottie Scheffler to new heights

Scottie Scheffler has six victories this season, including a second green jacket. It should come as no surprise that his equipment setup has remained static since the win in March at Bay Hill. Shaking up the setup isn’t an option when you’re on a heater.

If you need proof, just compare the setup from Arnie’s place to the setup he used to log title number six on Sunday at the Travelers Championship. It’s copy and paste when Scheffler hits paydirt.

Playing equipment favorites is an impossible task when you’re streaking, even if recency bias tells us Scheffler’s switch to a TaylorMade Spider Tour X mallet — a change that went down at Bay Hill — was the most important gear shakeup of the year. (You can read about the putter move in a recent deep dive.)

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But let’s forget about the putter for the moment and shift the focus to another early-season move that turned out to be equally important for Scheffler’s driving.

Back in February, Scheffler moved away from TaylorMade’s Stealth 2 driver into Qi10 after going through extensive testing sessions dating back to just before the Ryder Cup. Scheffler found Qi10 to be an intriguing option, but it wasn’t until the WM Phoenix Open that he decided to pull the trigger and make the change official.

“There was no way he was considering switching out of the Stealth 2 for even the same performance,” TaylorMade Tour rep Adrian Rietveld told GOLF.com. “He saw a little bit of ball speed, but that didn’t matter to him at all. He values accuracy so much, which is why he hardly looks at a ball speed number. His range of spin is wider than other players because he hits so many different shots and trajectories. He’s hitting shots at 6 and 12 degrees of launch.”

The “core” head, better known as TaylorMade’s middle-of-the-road offering, is an intriguing beast. During GOLF’s 2024 robotic testing, Qi10 presented a lower spin rate and launch angle than a majority of the drivers tested, two things better players with speed tend to gravitate towards. Another thing that intrigued Scheffler was the ball speed retention and consistent spin rates he observed on off-center strikes.

With each testing session, Scheffler could sense they were getting closer. During the final meetup at TPC Scottsdale, Scheffler pounded drivers with Qi10 on the TPC Scottsdale driving range as caddie Ted Scott and Rietveld observed the results.

The launch and spin numbers were dialed. The only thing that remained was eliminating the left side of the course with internal changes and a small loft adjustment, something Rietveld was able to achieve with a final loft sleeve adjustment.

“It’s getting dark and we’ve just made the final adjustment, moving the head one click higher back to standard upright, which is what he normally plays the 8-degree head,” Rietveld recalled. “Launch didn’t change, spin didn’t change, but the thing that changed for him is that he felt like there was zero left. There wasn’t even a straight shot. He really felt like he could commit to his start line. He was trying to take the whole left side of the golf course out.”

Scheffler won the first week out with Qi10 and hasn’t looked back. For someone who lives in the fairway, Scheffler has gotten even better this season — a scary realization, to be sure. He’s gone from finding the fairway 62 percent of the time last season to almost 72 percent this year.

The impressive improvement in accuracy highlights the focus TaylorMade placed on reducing the performance delta on mishits during product creation. Reduce the penalty for a miss and everything starts looking up.

In Scheffler’s case, changes to the driver have coincided with a season that rivals Tiger Woods’ incredible 2000 campaign. One change didn’t completely alter the trajectory of Scheffler’s season, but there’s no question it played a role in making the 28-year-old nearly unbeatable on the course.

Want to overhaul your bag for 2024? Find a fitting location near you at True Spec Golf.

Jonathan Wall

Golf.com Editor

Jonathan Wall is GOLF Magazine and GOLF.com’s Managing Editor for Equipment. Prior to joining the staff at the end of 2018, he spent 6 years covering equipment for the PGA Tour. He can be reached at jonathan.wall@golf.com.