Rory McIlroy: Fixing The Kinds of Mistakes He Made at Honda
Rory McIlroy revealed a new grip that should fix his putting problems.
When Rory McIlroy entered the interview room at the WGC-Cadillac Championship, it looked like the biggest news would be the style of his shirt, which sported a new collar style that Nike calls Fly Blade.
But soon after that, he was asked about a tweet where he demonstrated a left hand low style. His shirt was soon forgotten.
“It’s a drill that I’ve been doing for a while,” he said during his media conference on Wednesday. “I feel like my left hand sort of controls my putting stroke and that’s the shot of lead hand for me.”
McIlroy added that his right hand had become more dominant and caused him to miss some putts at the Honda Classic.
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“The contact (left hand low) is much better, and it really just takes my right hand out of it,” he explained about the change. “Everything that I have done in my putting the last few years is all to try and lead with the left hand, and really just have the right on there as more of a guide than anything else.”
He is going to stay with this new style of putting through this week, for the near future.
However, he did not blame his missed cut at the Honda Classic on putting.
“I was making mental errors, and got myself into a decent position on Friday,” he said about his play last week.
One example he said was the first hole, which he played as the 10th that particular day. He had 120 yards to the pin, was in the middle of the fairway with a wedge, and he made bogey.
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“I hit a pretty poor second shot,” he explained, adding that it added up to five when the hole was finished. “I made a double on 15. I made a triple on five.”
The bad news was a missed cut.
“You make nine birdies in the first two rounds, but you make – there’s 13 dropped shots in there. It’s never good,” he admitted.
The good news, he added, was that he did make nine birdies.
“If I can limit my mistakes and not make these silly mental errors and just play a little more, I don’t know if it’s smartly or conservatively, or take an extra couple of seconds to think about what you really need to do with it,” he paused. “ I’m a very instinctive player, so I step up and I hit it. Sometimes that can work for me, if everything is going with me, and I have momentum.”
But that was last week, and as even McIlroy said, “ I’ve missed enough cuts in my career to know that it isn’t the end of the world.”
This week at Doral McIlroy comes back to a location where he has been playing golf tournaments since he was eight years old. He’s familiar with it, even though it’s been renovated.
As far as the golf course goes, McIlroy seems to think it suits his game.
“Because of my length, I could really have an advantage here,“ he noted. “But there’s a lot of holes here where a lot of guys are going to be playing shots from the same areas, the same distances. And it’s a very risk/reward type of golf course with a lot of water.”
Playing shots from similar locations puts pressure on his approaches, and that is one area where he struggled last week.
He hopes to make up ground on the par fives, and hopes to get out of the par threes with pars.
“It’s a golf course where it’s not just bomb’s away, but at the same time, I think a little bit of length can give you an advantage.”
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