It was an unexpected change, but one that has yielded big results for Rory McIlroy as he enters this year’s Masters Tournament.

McIlroy was “messing around” on the short-game area at The Grove XXIII, Michael Jordan’s ultra-exclusive golf club in South Florida, when it happened. He started hitting some shots with a different model of TaylorMade golf ball and liked the way it felt. He wasn’t looking to make a move, but the ball was in his bag for his next start.

And it was here to stay when he won the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am a week later in his debut with the different ball. He also used it to win THE PLAYERS Championship, marking the first time he has won multiple PGA TOUR titles in a year before arriving at Augusta National Golf Club.

McIlroy had been using TaylorMade’s TP5x golf ball, but it was the company’s TP5 ball that he hit some shots with at The Grove.

“I loved how it was reacting around the greens. And then I started hitting some like 60-, 70-yard shots with it and it was coming off much lower launch, but spinnier,” McIlroy said.

He was even more pleased when he did some driver testing and found that he didn’t lose any ball speed with the TP5 even though it is a lower-compression golf ball.

The TP5 offers more spin on approach shots and shots around the green, with a slightly softer feel than the TP5x. It also launches a bit lower than its TP5x counterpart. When TaylorMade released the latest editions of the TP5 and TP5x balls last year – its first update to the line in three years – it said the TP5x was the fastest ball the company had ever created, while the TP5 was its softest. The latest edition of the TP5 also spins less on driver shots than previous iterations while still offering more spin with the irons. That was one reason McIlroy made the move.

McIlroy had been using a 2019 version of the TP5x, and when he did driver testing with the 2019 version of the TP5, he said it spun too much with his driver. That wasn’t the case with the 2024 version, though.

In addition to his two PGA TOUR wins in 2025, McIlroy has seen improvement in several statistics over last year. He was 52nd in Strokes Gained: Approach the Green in 2024 but ranks 19th this season, and he has improved from 115th in Average Proximity from 125-150 yards to 32nd. He also is fourth in Scrambling this year, up from 17th a year prior.

These statistical improvements come in areas where McIlroy was seeking to get better. He said at the start of the year that he wanted to shoot more bogey-free rounds in 2025, and that an improved short game would play a part in that. He said that his short game was “a little up and down” in 2024 and that he was seeking more consistency in that area.

He also has been hitting more “flighted” shots with his short-irons, hitting lower shots that are easier to control. That was on display during the playoff at this year’s THE PLAYERS, which he won over J.J. Spaun. After taking a one-shot lead in the three-hole playoff with a birdie at No. 16, McIlroy hit one of those “flighted” 9-irons safely onto the green. His second PLAYERS title was all but ensured after Spaun followed by hitting his tee shot into the water over the green.

McIlroy said he hit a “three-quarter, three-quarter” 9-iron on the 17th hole in the playoff, meaning, he took a three-quarter swing and hit it at three-quarter speed.

“It's a shot that I've always had with the wedges, but I've been reluctant to use it with like 9-iron, 8-iron, 7-iron down,” he said. “But this year I've gotten more into using that shot with some of those lower clubs like the 9-iron on 17, the 8-iron at the last today.”

In his winner’s press conference at TPC Sawgrass, McIlroy admitted that the second round of the 2024 Masters showed him that he needed to improve his play in the wind. He shot 77 on a windy day at Augusta National to end his chances at winning his first Masters title.

“It was so gusty,” he said. “I maybe didn't have all the shots that were required to go out and shoot something under par that day. When the conditions come like that, I just feel like I'm a lot better prepared to handle them. … It’s flighting the sort of wedges and short irons, which have been the issue, and I feel like I've been able to rectify that.”

When a ball is struck with a lower swing speed, like when a player is hitting a partial shot with a short-iron, there is less friction between the ball and clubface, explained Adrian Rietveld, TaylorMade’s senior Tour manager. That means the ball slides up the face and launches higher with less spin, which makes it harder to control the distance and trajectory of the shot. The TP5’s characteristics help counteract that tendency, though, because it is designed to fly lower but with more spin.

“Now he can hit these off-speed shots, because the launch angle is now lower, so the ball is not popping up, and then he can control the spin, which then means he can control the distance,” said Rietveld. “The confidence that the ball gives him now, he feels very comfortable hitting those shots.”

McIlroy’s driving, his most famous asset, doesn’t appear to be impacted by the change, either. McIlroy leads the TOUR in SG: Off the Tee (+0.86) and ranks sixth in Driving Distance (315.2 yards). He did take a half-degree of loft off his driver entering the final round of his last start, the Texas Children’s Houston Open, to decrease the spin on his tee shots.

With another shot at his first career green jacket coming this week, McIlroy is bringing a new golf ball with him and an arsenal of lower-flying and higher-spinning approach shots with his shorter irons. McIlroy is one of the best long-game players in the history of golf, and his bag of short-game tricks has gotten deeper. Gind out this week if he can put it all together to capture his first-ever victory at the Masters.

Head over to GolfWRX.com to see more information on McIlroy’s equipment setup in 2025.