McIlroy on His Riviera Debut, Workouts, and Driver Tweak

Rory McIlroy – his game is ready for his Riviera debut.

Rory McIlroy traditionally starts his calendar year in the Middle East. That schedule has been good to him, providing four of his 14 European titles.

Then, typically, he dips his toe into the PGA TOUR at the Honda Classic. But in 2016, his PGA Tour start will come at historic Riviera Country Club in the Northern Trust Open, a tournament that has been played since 1926.

“I haven’t played at Torrey or Pebble or Phoenix. It’s the first-ever one I played. It just fit into the schedule.” McIlroy said to media. “And if there was one that I had to pick to play out of this West Coast Swing, it would be this, just because of what I’ve heard about the golf course and the great things that the guys say about it.”

Even amateur and well-known actor Mark Wahlburg told McIlroy about the course at a dinner they shared at the end of last year.

“He was over in Ireland promoting one of his movies. I think I had already made the decision to play here, but he said, I’m a member there and it’s so nice and it’s pure,” McIlroy recalled.

He found Wahlburg at the course this week and told him everything Wahlburg said was true.

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But the idea to test the Kikuyu grass was already on McIlroy’s mind.

“I wanted to come here because of what I had seen on TV, and you know, the great things that people say about Riviera, and I wanted to come see it for myself,” he added.

So far he’s played 27 holes of practice, and has proclaimed it a great golf course.

“We don’t play golf courses like this very often anymore on Tour,” he said. “It’s a real treat when you come to a golf course like this where it’s not overly long, you don’t have to really bomb it off the tee, but it’s real strategic. You’ve got to place your ball on the right sides of the fairways.”

He also talked about the greens and added that getting used to the Poa Annua was going to take some practice.

“You have to make sure you hit it to the right side of the greens,” he continued. “You can’t really get it above the pin. It’s a real thinker’s golf course and it’s a real treat to play something like this because we don’t get to play them that often anymore.”

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While McIlroy played sparingly at the end of 2015, due to an ankle injury, it’s not his ankle that concerns him. It’s his back. Surprisingly he’s had back problems since he’s been 19 or 20. That’s one reason he decided to take to the gym.

“It was really the middle of 2010, end of 2010, where I realized that this isn’t going to get any better unless I start to take care of myself better. So getting in the gym, eating better, and I think from the start of 2011, the direct correlation between leading a healthier lifestyle and my performance on the course was the same,” he said. “I won my first major in 2011. I got to the best World Ranking I had ever been in 2011, and then it just continued from there.”

He trusts that his exercise regime will keep him injury-free.

“I had a degenerative disk in my back that sort of stayed the same. It has not got any worse, for example. It’s always been there. It’s always been a disc that isn’t quite as hydrated as the rest of them, but that’s the golf swing,” he said. “The spine does two things: It flexes and it rotates. And it doesn’t like to flex and rotate at the same time, which is what a golf swing does. So if anything, the golf swing is way worse for your back than anything I do in the gym.”