  Solar-type stars form with a wide range of rotation rates. A wide range
persists until a stellar age of 0.6 Gyr, after which solar-type stars exhibit
Skumanich spin-down. Rotational evolution models incorporating polytropic
stellar winds struggle to simultaneously reproduce these two regimes, namely
the initially wide range and the Skumanich spin-down without imposing an
a-priori cap on the wind mass-loss rate. We show that a three-dimensional wind
model driven by Alfv\'en waves and observational data yields wind torques that
agree with the observed age distribution of rotation rates. In our models of
the Sun and twenty-seven open cluster stars aged from 0.04 to 0.6 Gyr that have
observationally derived surface magnetic maps and rotation rates, we find
evidence of exponential spin-down in young stars that are rapid rotators and
Skumanich spin-down for slow rotators. The two spin-down regimes emerge
naturally from our data-driven models. Our modelling suggests that the observed
age distribution of stellar rotation rates arises as a consequence of magnetic
field strength saturation in rapid rotators.
