Rory McIlroy has reportedly made a huge equipment change ahead of the upcoming Masters Tournament, in a bid to end his nine-year drought for a major championship.
Despite cementing himself as one of the sport's top players in recent years, McIlroy is without a major triumph since his victory at the PGA Championship in 2014. Since then, the Northern Irishman has endured a number of near misses, including most recently at last summer's Open Championship.
With McIlroy playing some of the best golf of his career over the past year, excitement is once again building that this wait could be coming to an end, with this year's Masters less than a month away.
And in a bid to recreate his major success, The Telegraph has reported that Northern Irishman is now using a replica of the putter that helped him secure two of his four prestigious crowns. McIlroy had the Studio Select Newport GSS in his bag when winning the 2011 US Open and the 2012 PGA Championship.
A replica of the club has now returned, but has come as a shock to many, with the four-time major winner holding a £16 million per-year sponsorship deal with one of golf's leading manufacturers, Taylormade.
McIlroy has donned Taylormade clubs since signing with the company four years ago, with the only exception coming at the 2021 Olympic Games in Tokyo, where he used a Scotty Cameron Phantom X 11.5, before quickly returning to the Taylormade Spider.
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The Taylormade putter has no doubt served the Northern Irishman well in recent years, having helped him rekindle some of his best form. In 2022, the four-time major winner returned to No. 1 in the world, whilst also winning the season long races on both the PGA Tour and DP World Tour, taking the FedEx Cup and the DP World Tour Championship.
And this form has carried on into 2023, with McIlroy securing the Dubai Desert Championship in January, whilst also missing out on the Arnold Palmer Invitational by just one shot last month. The 33-year-old will have the replica putter in the bag for this week's WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play event in Austin, which kicks off on Wednesday.
