On many golf courses, the driver is a player’s biggest weapon off the tee. But at Delhi Golf Club, reaching for it can be a costly gamble. As players prepare for the DP World India Championship 2026, some of the game’s biggest names are considering a rather unusual strategy: leaving their most powerful club untouched.
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Rory McIlroy has admitted driving is his biggest strength, and he has every reason to say so. With an average of 330.3 yards, the Northern Irishman ranks second on the PGA Tour in driving distance. But this time around, the six-time major winner is happy to keep his driver in the hotel room.
Similarly, many other strong hitters will play at the DP World India Championship this week, including Ryan Fox (314.8 yards average), Min Woo Lee (322.4 yards), and others. But none of them plan to use their drivers. Fox has removed it from his bag entirely, while Lee is preparing to put his considerable driving power aside. Patrick Reed, meanwhile, plans to carry his driver but expects it to spend most of the week collecting dust.
Their decisions might sound surprising, especially at a venue measuring 6,912 yards. However, Delhi Golf Club (DGC) has a reputation that makes distance a secondary concern.
When British planners and colonial officers mapped the area in the early 1930s, they routed the course through overgrown jungle, thorny bushes, and Tughlaq- and Lodhi-era historical monuments. Its narrow fairways, sharp doglegs, dense trees, and thick rough demand accuracy and patience from players used to unleashing their drivers.
Rory McIlroy prefers winning over hitting driver
The 30-time PGA Tour winner’s approach captures the field’s dilemma. Last year, too, when the Tour returned to the historic venue for the first time since 2016, McIlroy left his driver out of his bag at DGC. Instead, he used longer irons for better control, joining the 42% of the field (58 of 138 players) who left their drivers in the bag that week.
The conversation ahead of this year’s championship suggests his thinking hasn’t changed much. Asked whether the driver might make an appearance given the longer rough, McIlroy recalled a joke from Shane Lowry.
Lowry had joked that DP World should write into McIlroy’s contract a requirement to hit his driver at least four times a day in India. But Rory McIlroy’s response was straightforward.
“I’m here to win the tournament. I’m not here to hit drivers. 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,” Rory McIlroy said.
McIlroy further emphasized that the next time he would pick up a driver would be in Abu Dhabi, adding: “I just don’t feel like the risk is worth the reward. I’d rather leave myself two or three clubs back and hit a seven iron into a par four instead of hitting a wedge.
“Just get it offline here and the ball is gone. You are hitting it into jungle, and you are not going to be able to hit it out and you could rack up a big number very quickly.”
Ryan Fox makes a rare equipment change
The reigning Open champion recalled playing aggressively, especially over the weekend, to win the season’s final major. At Royal Birkdale, Fox used his driver frequently to attack bunkers, gaining 3.18 strokes off the tee across four rounds to rank 10th in the field.
At Delhi Golf Club, though, the distance from a driver may offer little benefit if the ball ends up in a position where reaching the green becomes difficult.
Fox responded by removing his driver from his bag and adding a 2-iron, a club he hadn’t carried since The Open.
“I don’t have a driver in the bag this week, like a fear a chunk guys don’t. Yeah, it’s a placement, control-your-ball-style golf course,” the New Zealander said. “This week is different to that. It is — if you miss a tee shot, you’re hitting it again basically. So there is definitely going to be a measured approach to how to play this golf course. It’s going to be get it in play off the tee for the most part. I would say most guys in the field are going to take this theory.”
He admitted that the setup takes away some of his usual assets.
“I don’t even think I’ll hit a wood off the tee all week. I don’t think I’m going to be hitting three wood. It’s kind of two iron or four iron off a lot of holes. It’s a golf course, if you were claustrophobic, it wouldn’t be a lot of fun, to be honest. It’s pretty tight and narrow between the bushes and just off the fairway is kind of lost ball.
“It maybe takes a little bit of my assets out of the game. I generally like hitting driver a lot, but it’s kind of fun to play something quite a bit different to what we normally play.”
He even acknowledged he couldn’t recall playing a tournament without a driver in his bag. He did play a few events where he used the driver rarely, but every course still had a few holes where he could let himself loose. This makes the decision an unusual one even for an experienced professional.
Min Woo Lee faces a test of patience
For Min Woo Lee, DGC presents a mental test.
“No drivers, which is a little bit different to a normal course, but it’s going to test the mental strength this week,” Min Woo Lee said. “Yeah, I guess, I mean, we still have to play golf, so, I mean, it’s not like I’m bad with the other clubs. Again, I just tell myself it’s going to be a test.”
He said that the change might seem straightforward on paper. But repeating those shots throughout a round requires a different kind of concentration.
The thick rough adds another layer of difficulty. Lee described it as the juiciest he had encountered all year, even compared with courses in the United States. During the pro-am, he found himself in lies so difficult that reaching the green became a challenge despite his ability to generate substantial power.
For him, success will depend on staying focused and trusting the clubs that give him the best chance of reaching the fairway.
Patrick Reed will carry his driver, but it may collect dust
Unlike many other professionals who play the DP World Tour event in India, Patrick Reed tried to use the driver during today’s practice round. He used it on the 10th and 18th holes. However, he acknowledged that he kind of “forced” himself to use a driver.
Unlike Fox, McIlroy, and Lee, Reed has decided to retain his driver in the bag. However, his plans for the club suggest it may be largely symbolic during the championship.
“Well, driver is always — yes, driver will stay in the bag. I just wouldn’t have anything to replace it with. I go 3-wood, and I have interchangeable where I go 7-wood or 2-iron. They go the exact same distance, so for me I don’t want to have two clubs in the bag that go the exact same yardage. It’s like, if I do, it’s like, okay, do I want to hit this one or that one,” Patrick Reed said.
“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. Just kind of sit in there.”
He even hit a 2-iron off the tee on par-5 holes, followed by a 3-wood toward the green. Such decisions might seem counterintuitive on holes where players ordinarily try to maximize distance, but Reed believes positioning the ball correctly matters more than trying to reach the green in fewer shots at any cost.
He also warned against overswinging: “You get just a hair offline, you’re going to be in trouble. You know, over-swinging will definitely do it.”
Why Delhi Golf Club makes distance a risk
When the $4 million event made its debut in 2025, the Lodhi course at Delhi Golf Club was one of the shortest tests on that year’s DP World Tour schedule, stretching just 6,912 yards. It has four par-5s, but they run from 507 to 556 yards. The par-72 layout winds through the middle of Delhi, past the crumbling tombs that dot the property, and it plays tougher than the yardage suggests.
Distance counts for little here. Fairways are tight, so finding them off the tee matters more than length. The same goes for thick rough, which makes recovery difficult.
Therefore, patience becomes a scoring skill here. Repeatedly choosing irons and hybrids requires players to accept that they must approach some holes conservatively. The goal is to avoid costly mistakes and wait for opportunities to attack.
Tommy Fleetwood’s 2025 victory offers the same lesson. He won the tournament at 22 under par, finishing with a final-round 65, and building his success on control and careful course management. Fleetwood said he had not hit a club longer than a 5-wood during the tournament.
Now, when the warning for this week comes from him, it makes more sense.
Fleetwood revealed that this week precision will matter even more than before. The biggest change, he explained, is the rough: “how thickly they’ve grown it and penal they’ve made it”.
In his view, players simply have to play from the fairway now. And while it was always the right approach, in 2025 a wayward drive wasn’t a disaster. The Bermuda rough was unpredictable, yet he could still advance the ball toward the green, accept that hitting it was unlikely, and work out a sensible place to miss. Not anymore.
“Whereas so far I’ve played nine holes yesterday in the morning, very early morning when it was wet, and then today, I mean, you hit it in the rough and you’re just hacking it out, you know, back into play,” Fleetwood added.
What the 2025 field looked like
The 2025 field showed how divided players were over the driver. After round one, six of the top 16 on the leaderboard, about 38 percent, had no driver in the bag.
Thriston Lawrence was among those who stuck with it. He had said beforehand that he planned to hit driver six or seven times a round. He opened with a three-under 69, then shot 67 on Friday to sit four strokes behind second-round clubhouse leader Fleetwood.
The bags of Keita Nakajima and Casey Jarvis, who opened with 65 and 66, tell two different stories. Nakajima, who won the Hero Indian Open on the DP World Tour the year before, took out his driver, 3-wood and 5-wood and replaced them with a 4-wood, a 20-degree hybrid and a 3-iron. Jarvis topped his setup with a mini driver, then added a 4-wood, a 7-wood and a 4-iron.
At the far end of the spectrum was Tapio Pulkkanen, who had no fairway woods at all. The Finn went back-to-back with even-par 72s and was on track to miss the cut.
In fact, of the five players who had made the trip from the Ryder Cup in the States, only first-round leader Shane Lowry kept his driver in play.
How the 2025 Ryder Cup players built their bags (via Mathieu Wood):
Rory McIlroy: Left out both his driver and 3-wood. The top end of his bag runs through a 16-degree 2-iron, a 17-degree 5-wood and a 20-degree 3-iron.
Tommy Fleetwood: Compared with his previous start at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, he removed the driver and an 18-degree utility iron. In their place went a 9-wood and an additional wedge.
Viktor Hovland: Swapped his driver for a hybrid. His longest clubs are a 15-degree 3-wood, a 20-degree hybrid, and a utility 3-iron.
Ben Griffin: Replaced his driver with a utility 2-iron. The top of his bag includes a 15-degree 3-wood, that 2-iron, and a 21-degree 7-wood.
Shane Lowry: Made no changes. He kept the driver, an 18-degree 5-wood, and a 20-degree utility iron.