Rory McIlroy tried using a specific kind of gear for three tournaments, but they didn’t work out for him and the 36-year-old recently returned to his old ways.

The four-time major champion stopped using his TaylorMade P7CB irons on Tuesday, February 10, before the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Instead, he went back to his TaylorMade RORS PROTO blades, the clubs he has mostly used throughout his career.

"That experiment's over," "Back to the trusty irons that I've played basically my whole career," McIlroy said while speaking to the media on the same day, ahead of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

He made the change after three events. The Australian Open and two DP World Tour stops in Dubai. He finished T-14 and T-3, but then slipped to a disappointing T-33 at the Dubai Desert Classic.

He first put the cavity-backs in the bag last December for the final 36 holes in Australia. According to McIlroy, they never really felt comfortable after that.

When Rory McIlroy’s Instinct Took Over

The first problem McIlroy faced with the cavity-backs was his shot shape. His iron shots kept drifting to the right and something that never really happened when he used his blades.

"I'd make swings that I feel like I'd make with my blades that would be a very neutral ball flight, and then with the cavity-backs they would just start to tail off to the right," he said.

The plan was to change how he released the club at impact. It worked during practice, but under pressure, it didn’t hold up.

"For so many years, I'm used to feeling that held-off position through impact," McIlroy said. "Just didn't feel as familiar as I wanted it to."

For a player who relies on instinct, anything that feels unfamiliar just doesn’t work. As he starts his 2026 PGA Tour season at Pebble Beach, where he’s the defending champion, he’s back to using the clubs that have helped him win majors.

Although the experiment made sense at first. But in the end, the result wasn’t much of a surprise.

So do you think McIlroy's blades will help him perform better in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am?

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Written by

Sneha Abraham

Edited by

Souvik Roy