Taylormade XR-03 Driver

I used to have one of those many years ago, think it was the best driver I ever had.. till them gits declared them all illegal, too much of a trampoline effect they said…

We're talking years ago. The conforming drivers test and list was first issued in 1999 and the testing method refined in 2004. The Taylormade XR-03 was released in 2001/02. So I have no idea what the situation was way back then, but there may well have been edge cases that the TM club got through on and may have then failed the refined test.

An important note is that these conformance rules generally only apply to tournaments involving highly skilled players and top amateur events. Committees more generally can apply them, but I've never seen it happen. In any event, the 'grey area' where there were both conforming and non-conforming clubs on the market at the same time has long since past and pretty much every driver made since the mid 2000s are all conforming by and large.

That driver is twenty years old now and probably even more non-conforming at that age. 😁

Yes, it would be against the rules.

As Prawnsambo said, it was released a couple of years before it was deemed illegal. There was a raft of drivers at that time that became non-conforming - Titleist 975 J.VS, 975 L.FE, some of the Taylor Made 300 and 500 series drivers, Callaway ERC were some of the better known ones. There was a drive to make the faces as thin as possible for maximum trampoline effect and it was getting ridiculous so they rightly reined it in.