Collin Morikawa explains switch from longtime TaylorMade SIM driver into new Qi10 Max

Collin Morikawa and his TaylorMade SIM driver, with a Mitsubishi Diamana D+ Limited shaft, have been inseparable since the 2020 FedEx St. Jude Championship, which was a week prior to his victory at the 2020 PGA Championship at TPC Harding Park.

Sure, he's had brief stints with other drivers, but he always comes back to ol' faithful.

On Tuesday at the Kapalua Plantation Course, however, Morikawa had just one driver in the bag, and it wasn't a TaylorMade SIM driver, and it didn't have a Diamana D+ Limited in it.

That's right, Morikawa is set to make a switch this week into TaylorMade's new Qi10 Max driver, equipped with a lighter-weight Mitsubishi GT 50TX shaft.

No, you didn't read that wrong. Morikawa isn't switching into the Qi10 LS driver that Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods have put into play. Instead, he's switching into what could be considered the "game improvement" head in TaylorMade's upcoming Qi10 lineup.

To understand more about the switch, GolfWRX.com caught up with Morikawa on Tuesday in Hawaii. Here's everything Morikawa had to say about the switch:

"Yeah, I am [switching into the Qi10 Max driver this week]. I got a lot of crazy looks from the guys when I said I wanted the Max.

"Look, the TaylorMade guys have been amazing. They’ve obviously modified a bunch of heads, put in weights everywhere, try to match up the CGs (center of gravity). The SIM has been amazing for me. It’s a shallower head, not a deep head or a long head from front to back. It’s pretty shallow compared to the new ones. That’s always something that I’ve liked.

"Even though this face is the same as all the other ones – the Qi10 LS version and the regular core version – visually it looks shallower because of how long the head is. I tried this one with a different shaft. I actually haven’t switched shafts in a long time, since Harding Park – a week before Harding Park was FedEx St. Jude, I switched to the 60-gram Diamana D-Plus, which I played for a while. I switched to another profile of a Diamana, a little lighter version, and I’ve just been finding center.

"At the end of the day, the center ones are always gonna be good. When you’re on Trackman, you look at it, and it looks good, it’s great. But I really care about the misses right. Where am I going to miss it on the face? Does it feel good?

"And it’s been great. I’ve been playing it for a couple of weeks, almost since the Bahamas, and it’s been really good. I’m excited to put it in play. This course, with the wind, even though there’s wide fairways, you need to be in the fairway to score.

"It’s a little spinnier than my SIM. My SIM was a little bit on the lower side. Look, for someone who doesn’t hit it that far, it’s obviously nice to optimize it as much as you can: high launch, low spin. But, with this one, I’ve been able to play my different heights. So if it’s downwind and I need to be able to carry it, it covers. If it’s straight into the wind, I’m able to keep it low, and keep it flat and not spinny. If anything it’s still living on the higher side of the spin numbers. Maybe it’s spinning at, if I get a spinny one, 2500-2600 rpm, but the good ones when I’m hitting it in the center are phenomenal. They’re spinning at 2300 and staying in the air. But everything about it, it’s launching where I want when I look up; it’s doing what I want. So it’s very, very positive in that sense.

"Sound and feel is huge. I’ve got a lot of hot melt in this head. Look, the Max is made for someone who needs to get the ball up in the air and needs the spin, I have to explain to everyone that I have the amateur version. But no, I truly love it. And the feel with the hot melt and everything in it and back and forth is softened it up a little bit and the mishits have been great. I’m excited to put it in play."

It should also be noted that the only 5-wood in Morikawa's bag on Tuesday was a new TaylorMade Qi10 V-Steel at 18 degrees, and equipped with a Mitsubishi Diamana D+ 80X shaft.