Rory McIlroy is coming off a PGA Tour season where he was second in Strokes Gained: Off The Tee and became one of the first two golfers to average over 330 yards in driving distance.
“I’m here to win the tournament. I’m not here to hit drivers,” he said at his pre-tournament press conference. “I think the best chance will be by keeping the driver in the bag or in the hotel room so I’m not even attempting to hit it.”
McIlroy is certainly not alone. Delhi Golf Club, hosting this tournament for the second year in a row, is one of the DP World Tour’s most unique challenges.
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Measuring just 6,912 yards, Delhi Golf Club is one of the shortest courses on the DP World Tour schedule. With narrow fairways flanked by thick rough, dense jungle and even ancient tomb ruins, precision off the tee is crucial.
In pre-tournament press conferences, other players have confirmed they will also play without a driver, noting the rough is even thicker than it was when the championship debuted a year ago. When Tommy Fleetwood won last year, the mini driver was the longest club in his bag. Fleetwood’s title-winning setup in Delhi also included a 4-iron alongside his 9-wood.
As in 2025, McIlroy appears likely to remove both his driver and 3-wood and play with a 2-iron, 5-wood, 3-iron at the top of his bag. He appeared to play the 2-iron off the tee on DGC’s longest hole, the 556-yard par-5 18th.
On The Locker Room, the DP World Tour’s preview show, McIlroy said he could potentially win with just a bag full of irons this week, but the 5-wood offered some advantages.
“Five-wood might be necessary for a couple of second shots into par-5s,” he said. “Or there’s a couple of doglegs on the front nine where you could maybe get a bit of height with a 5-wood and hit it over corners.
“I’ll probably go 5-wood, 2-iron, which go about the same distance; they’re just different trajectories.”
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Min Woo Lee, who, like McIlroy, is one of the longest players in professional golf, averaging 322.4 yards off the tee, called it a mental challenge. He too will be going without a driver in his bag.
“I just tell myself it’s going to be a test,” he said. “To do something so repetitive — hit long irons off the tee, hybrids off the tee and getting it in position — it can get a little repetitive, so I have to tell myself, you know, this is where we are this week. You just got to keep doing that.
“It’s going to be challenging for everyone. So I think just telling myself that, to stay in it and, yeah, it’s just everyone has to deal with it.”
Open Championship winner Ryan Fox said he thought this was the first tournament he’d played without a driver in his bag.
Last season, 42 percent of the field went without a driver, according to Inside Tour Golf, the equipment surveyor on the DP World Tour. But even the players who carried one used it sparingly.
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Reed said he is sticking with his normal setup, leaving the driver in the bag because he said he doesn’t have anything to replace it with.
“I mean, I forced myself today to allow myself to hit two drivers. Everything else was less than driver,” Reed said. “Hit the fairway on 10 with driver, and then 18 I hit driver and hit that down the fairway as well. So, yeah, two for two on driver. That’s good.
“Driver will stay in the bag … So I’m going to stick with my normal setup. It’s going to look pretty sitting in there, but not be pulled out. That’s fine with me. Just kind of go out there and play the hole with what I feel like is the best way for me to go out there and attack it.
“Yeah, the driver will get dusty by the end of the week”
