Major champion accuses PGA Tour stars of cheating driver testing

The innocuous practice of driver testing had rarely slipped into the public consciousness before the storm that surrounded Rory McIlroy at the PGA Championship.

It emerged at Quail Hollow that McIlroy’s beloved TaylorMade QI10 driver was deemed to be non-confirming during a test on Tuesday.

Tests results from club inspections are usually kept confidential, but the leaks that McIlroy had to replace his “gamer” driver just before the tournament blew the conversation wide open.

It is not unusual for drivers to fail testing, with thin faces subject to wear and tear from the elite players crushing balls with huge swing speeds. In turn, that can cause extra springiness which makes the club non-conforming.

And while McIlroy conspicuously refused to speak on the matter himself, Scottie Scheffler conceded that his driver also failed compliance checks after picking up the Wanamaker Trophy on Sunday.

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Xander Schauffele, meanwhile, called for compulsory driver checks for the whole field, with only a third of the 156-player field in Charlotte subject to these checks.

Fellow major champion Lucas Glover shares Schauffele’s concern, but has also stoked the flames by claiming that some players cheat the system anyway.

Glover was asked on his SiriusXM radio show why testing isn’t carried out on every driver in the field.

“I’ve been trying to think all morning and all day how to say this without sounding like it’s going to sound – but most guys don’t give them their real driver anyway,” Glover claimed.

“They give them their backup just in case. No, it’s true. And the testing is the way it is, why, and again, I know a lot of guys, they keep two drivers in their bag just in case.

“Hey, oh, yeah – it’s this one. It’s this one right here. Yeah, do this, test this one.’”

Glover says he was one of the players who had his driver tested at Quail Hollow, but it passed as he doesn’t hit the ball ball enough to “thin out the face anymore.”

He did acknowledge why McIlroy could have been so irked by his test results, though.

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“I said, wow, that stinks for him because you’ve got to drive it there really, really, really well,” the 2009 US Open champion added. “And obviously, coming off the Masters and coming off playing great all winter, all spring, and you’ve got to do that. Yeah, I was like, man, that’s tough.”

Glover believes the only solution is uniform testing at the major championships, which brings together players from tours around the world.

“Why doesn’t everybody get tested at every major? ” he said. “And why don’t we somehow try to make sure it’s the driver being used?”

The American also insisted that with the money floating around the game right now, the increased cost of testing for the sport’s governing bodies and equipment manufacturers should not be of concern.

“If we’re going be on an equal playing field, and the four biggest events are going to bring all these people and all these tours together,” Glover said, “let’s make sure we’re playing under the same rules.”

Ben Parsons is the Senior Writer at bunkered and is the man to come to for all of the latest news, across both the professional and amateur games. Formerly of The Mirror and Press Association, he is a member at Halifax Golf Club and is a long-suffering fan of both Manchester United and the Wales rugby team.