Xander Schauffele apologizes to Scottie Scheffler for leaking non-conforming driver news

DUBLIN, Ohio – Xander Schauffele smiled as he remembered how ticked off he was six years ago at Royal Portrush during the 2019 British Open after he was exposed for having a non-conforming driver. 

“I kind of lit a fire and threw everyone under the bus,” he said. “I remember there was a line, and I was like, ‘I’m stepping across it.'”

Driver testing became a big topic of discussion again during the 107th PGA Championship when SiriusXM reported that Rory McIlroy's club had failed a USGA test ahead of the major, forcing him to switch out the head of the TaylorMade Qi10 driver he had used to win the Masters in April. He wasn’t the only big-name player to fail, either. We learned during the final round that world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler was on his way to winning his third career major with his backup TaylorMade driver. 

“I was the one who leaked it, basically, about Scott’s,” Schauffele said. “To me, it was more of like, a credit to how good he was, ya know? I didn’t realize — I apologized. I was like, ‘Sorry, dude. I wasn’t trying to have that be a question in your media after you just won another major.’

“It was more about, like, this guy just used his backup and absolutely rinsed the field again.”

Scheffler gave a thoughtful answer, echoing Schauffele that more thorough testing needed to be implemented to make the testing more credible. Given that McIlroy has declined to comment on the subject, it refuses to go away. Last week, during his SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio show, Lucas Glover re-lit the fire when he said that he believes players on the PGA Tour who are required to submit their drivers for random USGA conformance testing for face flexibility have been known to avoid having their actual gamers tested by submitting a backup model for the field test instead. 

Speaking at the U.S. Women’s Open, USGA CEO Mike Whan was quick to dismiss this possibility. “We keep serial numbers of the driver that was given to us,” he said. “And 90 percent of the drivers that were given to us in those practice facilities when we test are played on the first tee, and we expect 10 percent of players to be making changes anyway,” he said.

Asked if he agreed with Glover’s remarks that players might be circumventing driver testing, Collin Morikawa said, “People joke about doing it, but I don't think anyone actually does.”

Has he had a driver fail? “I don't think I swing it fast enough,” he said. “Or I don't hit enough drivers on the range. One or the other.”

CT Creep, a measurement recorded in microseconds that indicates how long the ball stays in contact with the clubface during impact, is a phenomenon where a golf driver's face becomes more flexible over time, potentially exceeding legal limits. Morikawa went on to explain that the process by which a driver is graded is comparable to a traffic light – green is good, yellow passes, but use it with caution as it is on the verge of failing, and red is non-conforming.

“We want our drivers to be in yellow. It's passing, but it's like you want it to be fast, you don't want it to be slow,” he said. “But if it's close to failing or if it's failing and it's close to cracking, I mean, what are you gaining? You're not gaining anything. Guys aren't going to hit it 25 yards further.”

“It’s not like a corked bat,” Schauffele said. “That’s just not how golf works. You either swing it hard and hit it hard or you don’t.”

Schauffele added: “I didn’t even understand the public’s negative opinion on it, it didn’t really register in my head because I know, one, it’s like, we hit our drivers a lot, so they creep and then they go over a line. We don’t know the line — we have no clue. Unless our driver physically cracks and you start hitting these knuckle balls off the tee that disperse everywhere; then you know your driver’s broken.”

It's not so much about what a player is gaining but what is lost – comfort with a gamer that a player trusts. The specs may be the same, but drivers are mass-produced products and players develop relationships and preferences for specific clubs. In ways that club players could not detect, they perform differently.

“They can have all the same writing and logos on them, but the makeup of each head and shaft is slightly different,” he said. “We have our trusty club, and then you take it out and switch it … there’s a little bit of a grace period where you have to get used to it.”

Does that explain why McIlroy, arguably the best driver of the ball on Tour, was spraying his tee shots around Quail Hollow and went from Grand Slam aspirations to barely making the cut and a disappointing T-47 finish? 

Perhaps, but until he addresses the subject – next week when he plays at the RBC Canadian Open? – we won’t know for sure. 

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: driver-testing-xander-schauffele-lucas-glover-collin-morikawa