Despite TaylorMade’s largely successful attempts to keep the R9 under wraps until its media embargo was lifted today, speculation had been rife for months.

Photographs of the TaylorMade R9 first appeared on the internet last December. The website, mygolfspy.com released some early snaps but weren’t sure if what they were showing was the correct final version.

Then within days of each other at the beginning of January two other sites, golfwrx.com and bombsquadgolf.com showed the same set of grainy photographs on their forums. This version of the R9 was different to that shown on mygolfspy.com, with the introduction of white graphics on the sole the main difference.

Then on January 7th a teaser appeared on TaylorMade’s own website. No photographs, just a creative piece of advertising telling us that the R9 was due to be launched in March.

Golf Monthly were the first members of the media to gain official access to the R9 back in November 2008. We traveled to Spain to see the club as it was secretly unveiled to Sergio Garcia.

For our world exclusive coverage of the new TaylorMade R9, pick up a copy of the March issue of Golf Monthly.