‘It’s not right!’ Xander Schauffele drags Scottie Scheffler into illegal driver drama at PGA Championship

Rory McIlroy wasn’t alone in having to replace his TaylorMade driver at Quail Hollow, with Xander Schauffele claiming Scottie Scheffler’s big stick also failed to meet the legal limit.

Driver testing has been one of the biggest talking points at this week’s PGA Championship in Charlotte, and defending champion Xander Schauffele has made his feelings on the process abundantly clear.

Speaking after his final round at Quail Hollow on Sunday, Schauffele questioned the fairness of the process, which saw Rory McIlroy forced to change to a backup head ahead of the first round, before hinting that current tournament leader and World No.1 Scottie Scheffler had to do the same after failing to meet the criteria.

The PGA of America invited the USGA – which, alongside the R&A, sets all of the rules and parameters around golf equipment – to carry out tests on site at the year’s second men’s major. Approximately a third of the 156-man field’s drivers were checked to ensure they conformed to the equipment rules and limits.

Schauffele, who fired a closing 68 to finish under par in his defence, said the testing should be across all players or none at all, suggesting the scattergun approach could allow some players an unfair advantage.

“Do it to everybody, not just a third of the guys and if a player has a hot driver they’re still playing the tournament,” Schauffele said. “Just my take.”

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The two-time major champion has previously fallen foul to the testing, being forced to find a backup at the 2019 Open Championship, which he said “pissed me off”.

“It’s not right to just test 50 guys. It just doesn’t make sense if you’re in it for the spirit (of the game). The whole point of it is to protect the integrity of the field. If you don’t test everyone across the board I don’t think you’re protecting the whole field,” the American said.

Rory McIlroy – the best driver in the game – reportedly had to replace his TaylorMade Qi10 head ahead of his first round after his ‘gamer’ head reportedly failed the USGA’s testing, forcing him to use a backup.

The Masters champion went on to hit just four of 14 fairways in the opening round and ranked T152 in fairways hit through 36 holes. His accuracy off the tee improved across the weekend, but he endured a disappointing week by his high standards having found the short stuff with just 26 of his 56 tee shots.

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Neither the PGA of America nor the USGA would confirm whether McIlroy’s TaylorMade Qi10 driver had failed or even been among those tested, while the career Grand Slam winner declined to speak to the media after all four of his rounds. The Northern Irishman finished the tournament – played on a course where he’s won four times – way down the leaderboard on +3 after successive weekend 72s.

But the man who started Sunday at the top of the leaderboard has been dragged into the driver drama, too, with Scheffler’s Ryder Cup teammate suggesting he’d also fallen foul of the USGA’s stringent rules.

“I think Scott is winning the tournament and I think he switched to his backup, too,” Schauffele said, much to the surprise of those interviewing him.

“See, you don’t even know because he’s so good. We can deal with it because the (equipment) reps are so good now.”

Scheffler later confirmed it to be true, before saying that it was time for the governing bodies to change the rules.

Like McIlroy, Scheffler also uses TaylorMade Qi10 driver, opting not to switch into the 2025 Qi35 model.

Speaking earlier in the week, television analyst and PGA Tour player Johnson Wagner said incidents such as this were commonplace at the highest level.

“The USGA conducts these tests pretty much every week out here on professional golf and they test it across all aspects of the face of the driver. Drivers fail all the time. Every single week, somebody’s driver fails. It is by no fault of the player, they don’t know how to do it, it is a sophisticated testing system,” he said on Sirius XM’s PGA Championship broadcast.

“When you’re a player like Rory McIlroy that hits the ball as hard as he does the face naturally thins out. It’s unfortunate it happened the week of a major and that it maybe cost him a few shots yesterday.

“He did nothing wrong. No player that [fails] driver head tests ever does anything wrong; this is something that happens week to week on the PGA Tour.”