{"id":414984,"date":"2026-01-15T16:19:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T16:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/414984\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T16:19:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T16:19:10","slug":"rory-mcilroy-clubs-cavity-back-irons-make-strong-debut-in-dubai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/414984\/","title":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy Clubs: Cavity-Back Irons Make Strong Debut In Dubai"},"content":{"rendered":"

In most sports, you don’t change a winning formula. But that’s not modern golf’s way, and despite winning the Grand Slam last year<\/a>, Rory McIlroy has made a big equipment switch for 2026.<\/p>\n

But he seems happy enough with the change after using his full new armoury in anger for the first time in his 2026 debut at the Dubai Invitational<\/a> – and shot an opening 66 to take the lead.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

McIlroy’s What’s In The Bag for 2026<\/a> looks a lot different from last year, with still a full bag of TaylorMade golfing weapons but with a new golf ball for the year and one huge change in his irons.<\/p>\n

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The switch is a big one that’s attracted all the attention, with one of the purist ball strikers in golf now wielding a set of cavity-back irons for the first time in his career – and he’s very happy with them.<\/p>\n

There’s no ego allowed in McIlroy’s endless search for improvement, and he happily told the DP World Tour that he’ll take any extra help his new TaylorMade P7CBs<\/a> will give him<\/p>\n

“If there’s help to be had I’ll definitely take it,” McIlroy joked after his opening round at Dubai Creek.<\/p>\n

“I’ve been thinking about it for a while and even in Dubai at the end of last year I hit a couple of 5-irons that I mis-struck slightly and instead of it maybe coming up five or seven yards short it was coming up 10 to 15 yards short.<\/p>\n

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“So I asked the guys at TaylorMade to build me up a set and I actually went down to Australia with them and with that firm turf down there I felt like those irons were going through the turf better than the blades.”<\/p>\n

McIlroy has been working with the new irons at home and, together with his new golf ball for 2026 he feels his new set-up is working just fine to start the new season.<\/p>\n

“I’ve practiced at home with them since and I’ve got a new golf ball in play this week as well, the new 2026 ball,” McIlroy added.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Rory\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

“Overall I’ve liked what I’ve seen at home and today was a good test for them and I felt like everything was pretty good.”<\/p>\n

McIlroy has ditched his TaylorMade Rors Protos to make the move to the TaylorMade P7CB<\/a>, marking the first time he hasn’t played with blades in his pro career.<\/p>\n

He teased the switch to a full set in January, and at TGL as he was spotted using a full bag of the irons, <\/a>which having passed the first test will be his clubs for the rest of the 2026 season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In most sports, you don’t change a winning formula. But that’s not modern golf’s way, and despite winning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414985,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":["post-414984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}