It looked like another disappointing final round for Rory McIlroy. Trailing by one after Robert MacIntyre’s stunning birdie at the last at the Genesis Scottish Open, McIlroy failed to birdie the par-5 16th, leaving just the difficult par-3 17th and the challenging par-4 18th, which was playing into the teeth of a 25-mile-per-hour wind. Not exactly birdie holes.
McIlroy, however, turned them into ones. A driving 5-iron at 17 stopped inside five feet, leading to the tying birdie. Then, with 202 yards into the 18th, McIlroy switched from a 4-iron to a 2-iron he’d just put in the bag for the week and proceeded to hit a laser that finished nine feet from the cup. McIlroy made the putt to produce his first back-to-back birdies of the week and grab the win. The 2-iron McIlroy added is TaylorMade’s P•760 bent to 17 degrees with a Project X HZRDUS Black 6.5 graphite shaft.
McIlroy’s driver and putter worked all week, too. For the week McIlroy led the field in driving distance at 331.9 yards (303.5 metres) as well as topping the field in strokes gained/off-the-tee at 5.927 shots with his 9-degree TaylorMade Stealth 2 Plus driver with a Fujikura Ventus TR Blue 6x shaft.
On the greens, McIlroy was one of the best on the final day, gaining two strokes on the field for the round with his TaylorMade Spider X Hydro Blast mallet putter. Among the highlights besides his final two putts was a 37-footer that dropped at the par-3 14th, putting him in position for his closing theatrics.
What Rory McIlroy had in the bag at the 2023 Genesis Scottish Open:
Ball: TaylorMade TP5x
Driver: TaylorMade Stealth 2 Plus (Fujikura Ventus TR Blue 6x), 9 degrees
3-wood: TaylorMade Stealth 2 Plus, 15 degrees
Irons (2, 4): TaylorMade P•760; (5-9): TaylorMade Rors prototype; (PW): TaylorMade MG3
Wedges: TaylorMade MG3 (50 degrees); TaylorMade MG4 (54, 60 degrees)
Putter: TaylorMade Spider X Hydro Blast
