Rory McIlroy has built a reputation for his strong drives. He has consistently been one of the best drivers on the PGA Tour throughout his career. Yet, even that reputation doesn’t fully capture what fellow pros see up close. PGA Tour pro Luke Clanton had an opportunity to see him close. He saw something in the Northern Irishman’s drive that he believes TV fails to convey.

“I remember, I think it might have been the Friday or Thursday on 18th, I nuke one, and I think we both knew we were going to miss the cut, and I look over at him, and I was like, ‘Catch that one.’ And I should have never said anything because he’s teed it up, and this ball flew my ball by 20 yards, and I was like, damn, dude,” Luke Clanton told Smylie Kaufman in an episode of The Smylie Show.

“TV does not do justice to that ball fight at all. You know, it’s incredible to watch. And I think, playing with these guys, you just learn so much. And you learn that you can’t really adapt what they do. You have to adapt what you do and just get good at what you have.”

The 22-year-old PGA Tour pro from Florida State University turned professional last year in 2025. After a dominant amateur run, he earned his card from the PGA Tour University Accelerated program. This included four top-10s as a college player in 2024 – the most since Jack Nicklaus in 1961.

Luke Clanton got a chance to play with Rory McIlroy at the 2025 RBC Canadian Open at TPC Toronto. The two were paired together along with Ludvig Aberg for the first two rounds. Unfortunately for Clanton, the 5x major champion didn’t play well that week. It is rare for Rory McIlroy to be in the bottom 10 of the field, but that’s what happened.

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His first round was still decent, with 3 birdies and 4 bogeys, resulting in 1-over 71. However, in the second round, he hit only two birdies, four bogeys, a double bogey, and a quadruple bogey. While Luke Clanton didn’t get to see the 29x PGA Tour winner move on to the weekend, he did get to see his amazing driving skills.

Clanton hit a 330-yard drive on hole 18 in Round 1. That’s when he boasted about it and challenged Rory McIlroy to outdo him. And he did. The Northern Irishman hit a 343-yard drive to go past Clanton. However, Clanton got his revenge, too. In Round 2, Clanton hit a 350-yard drive on hole 18.

While these numbers show that Rory McIlroy has great driving skills, they do not do justice to the flight he gets on the ball.

Trackman data for McIlroy’s driver shows a clubhead speed of 120–130 mph, along with a spin rate of around 2,100-2,300 rpm. With such great speed and a high launch, he keeps the ball in flight for a very long time. This is what helps him get a lot of distance in his drives. Many analysts describe those drives as “sailing to the moon.”

As Luke Clanton described, it was a learning experience for him. And he still has a long way to go on that road to make it big on the PGA Tour.

Luke Clanton’s journey on the PGA Tour

The 22-year-old’s amateur career has been stellar, which has quickly landed him on the PGA Tour through the accelerated program. However, making a mark on the toughest professional circuit in golf is not an easy feat to accomplish. He played 8 events on the PGA Tour in 2024 before turning professional. In those 8, he made the cut in 7, and even had runner-up finishes at the 2024 John Deere Classic and the 2024 RSM Classic.

However, when he started playing professionally, things began to go downhill for him. In his rookie year, he had 18 starts and made the cut in 11 of them. However, it included only 2 top 25 finishes. This earned him $251,429 in official earnings, which is not at all bad for a rookie.

This year, he has had 3 starts, but didn’t make the cut in any of them. At the 2026 Sony Open in Hawaii, he carded rounds of 69-72 to finish 1-over par 141 and miss the cut. Then at the American Express 2026, he withdrew in the second round after hitting a 2-under par 70 in the opening round. The last event he played was the 2026 Farmers Insurance Open, where he again missed the cut with rounds of 75 and 71.

Now, he is in the field at the 2026 Cognizant Classic, where he will be competing against elites like Shane Lowry, Brooks Koepka, and Max Homa. He will be teeing up at 1:11 pm EST alongside Jesper Svensson and Kensei Hirata.

For Luke Clanton, life on the PGA Tour is still a work in progress. It is filled with missed cuts and flashes of promise. However, he is taking up lessons that only come from lining up against the best players in the game. Watching Rory McIlroy launch drives that seem to hang forever offered one of those lessons.