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20D AGO

Collin Morikawa makes successful debut with new TaylorMade Qi35 driver

5 Min Read

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    Written by GolfWRX

    Collin Morikawa isn’t always quick to upgrade to new technology, especially when it comes to the driver. Although he did play the TaylorMade Qi10 LS driver for most of 2024, he spent several years before that using an older model.

    The point is, Morikawa is methodical when it comes to driver switches. But he wasted no time upgrading into TaylorMade’s newest 2025 Qi35 LS driver head at The Sentry to start the 2025 season. Morikawa finished second to Hideki Matsuyama that week while ranking seventh in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee. He was second in driving accuracy, hitting 49 of 60 fairways, while also ranking in the top 10 in driving distance (289.6 yards).

    Morikawa is meticulous with his golf clubs, so the search for the exact right driver Qi35 LS driver head took time. He said he spent approximately two months looking through driver heads before the start of The Sentry. It’s not just finding the right model or loft. It’s also about one that feels just right in Morikawa’s hands. Even two driver heads that are the same model can feel different because of small variances in weighting.


    A look at Collin Morikawa's new 2025 TaylorMade Qi35 LS driver. (GolfWRX)

    A look at Collin Morikawa's new 2025 TaylorMade Qi35 LS driver. (GolfWRX)

    A look at Collin Morikawa's new 2025 TaylorMade Qi35 LS driver. (GolfWRX)

    A look at Collin Morikawa's new 2025 TaylorMade Qi35 LS driver. (GolfWRX)


    “For me, it’s a lot just finding one head that looks really, really good, (but) also you hit it in the center of the face,” Morikawa said. “You can get the same exact head, but just the way the weights are, everything is built a little different. It’s been good. I found a head that I like, but it’s taken a little bit of trial and error.”

    Morikawa said he also likes to look at a driver that looks square at address. If it doesn’t, he’ll start making compensations and manipulating the club through impact.

    “If it doesn’t look square, I’m going to manipulate my hands, manipulate my body to swing it the right way,” Morikawa said. “After that, it’s just launch and spin for me. … Normally it’s launching too low with too much spin. So it’s, how do you raise it up but also keep that swing the same without trying to hit up on it.”

    There were multiple fittings with various prototypes before Morikawa found the correct setup.

    “The biggest factor in our fitting was the three weights in the Qi35 LS head,” Ryan Ressa, TaylorMade manager of Player Development, told PGA TOUR.COM. “We initially started with the stock weighting position of 3-3-13 (grams) and lowered the loft to around 9.25 (degrees) and then we balanced the weights where we had equal weighting in each weight port at 8-8-8 with hot melt in the center. That initial testing session was a windy day so we left it at that.

    “We went back to see him in early November and started with the same setup and it was really good. He played that for a few weeks and then we saw him again at the TaylorMade content shoot in late November and gave him a few different loft settings at 9.5 and 9.8 degrees. We had the weights at 8-8-7 to keep it neutral and he hit it a few more times while we were with him in Florida.

    “We kept thinking about the head characteristics through early December and sent Collin a few more heads that he kept testing and let him work through the process of identifying the best option on his own. He landed on a head at 9.5 degrees in the standard setting with the neutral weights and has played that ever since. He practiced really hard leading into Kapalua to spend a lot of time with the LS and was really comfortable going into the tournament.

    Low-spin heads are becoming few and far between on TOUR, with larger driver heads being more forgiving but still giving players the opportunity to work the ball, but Morikawa benefitted from the Qi35 LS for a number of reasons.

    “Visually the shape of the LS head is the smallest of our line and he always gravitates towards smaller-looking heads,” Ressa said. “For him that allows him to feel like he has to be more precise, which leads to better ball-striking. He wants to force himself to be old school and have to hit the center of the face. He needs a lower spinning head, something that’s able to shape left to right across the fairways. The shaping of the trajectory was ideal with this head overall especially with us being able to manipulate weighting with the three adjustable weights.

    Finishing at 32-under-par at The Sentry and leading the event in Total Driving is certainly a strong way to come out of the starting gates with the new Qi35 LS driver.

    "Compared to his Qi10, the launch is about a quarter of a degree higher and spin is up about 100 rpm, but that is what he was looking for,” Ressa explained. “His previous gamer was hovering 2,200, 2,300 spin and he wanted to get up to around 2,400 and we were able to fine-tune the adjustments to get spin into the window he is looking for. When we set out in testing, we asked what the boxes we needed to check were to make the driver perfect. We had a lot of time in the offseason to really work on that and he came out of the gates in Hawaii strong with his driver.”