Rory McIlroy: 'I'm in a better place with everything going into this week'

Irish Examiner

2 days ago

Rory McIlroy is hoping little amnesia and some urgent retooling off the tee can aid his attempts to tame the 'nearly impossible' challenge of Oakmont this week.
The 2011 US Open champion was up early on Tuesday morning to play nine holes of practice alongside close friend Shane Lowry at the Pittsburgh course. It went a whole lot better than a scouting trip the previous week.
McIlroy revealed that in spite of a pair of closing birdies last Monday he shot an 81 on a course which many see as the sternest test American golf can pose, particularly with its ultra-punishing rough this week.
Given that he followed that ugly score with a pretty disastrous weekend at the RBC Canadian Open, his post-Masters glow fading in rapid quick time, one would be forgiven for expecting McIlroy to be battling a slew of concerns at the year's third major.
His pre-tournament press conference did admittedly feature fresh moments of reflection on how adjusting to life after completing the career grand slam has been a struggle.
However McIlroy said last weekend's unexpected time off had helped him figure out one big piece of the puzzle.
Having quickly returned to Florida from Toronto, McIlroy was asked what he had learned at home? 'I learned that I wasn't using the right driver,' he replied to laughter.
During Tuesday's practice on the back nine alongside Lowry, McIlroy was carrying a TaylorMade Qi10 driver. That was the model he swung to success at the Masters only to see his favoured one fail a compliance test prior to the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow.
Since then things have been far from reliable as he cycled between replacements and the Qi35 model which let him down in Canada.
'Every driver sort of has its own character and you're trying to manage the misses,' McIlroy said.
'I feel like, as the last few weeks go, I learnt a lot on Thursday and Friday last week and did a good bit of practice at home and feel like I'm in a better place with everything going into this week.'
Asked how big an impact it had made at Quail Hollow not to have his 'gamer' driver, McIlroy pointed to the eventual winner, replying: 'it wasn't a big deal for Scottie, so it shouldn't have been a big deal for me.'
The 36-year-old argued that throughout his career he has always been slow to refocus after big victories. April's crowning moment in Georgia was the biggest yet so it perhaps makes a certain amount of sense that this has been an extended run of readjustment. Ignoring what's gone before may be the approach this week.
'I think it's trying to have a little bit of amnesia and forget about what happened six weeks ago. Then just trying to find the motivation to go back out there and work as hard as I've been working.
"I worked incredibly hard on my game from October last year all the way up until April this year. It was nice to sort of see the fruits of my labor come to fruition and have everything happen,' he said.
'You have to enjoy that. You have to enjoy what you've just accomplished. At some point, you have to realize that there's a little bit more golf left to play this season, here, Portrush, Ryder Cup, so those are obviously the three big things that I'm sort of looking at for the rest of the year.'
TAKING AIM: Rory McIlroy takes it down the last in his practice round ahead of the 125th US Open at Oakmont Country. Pic:McIlroy's last visit to Oakmont was the spark of a run of three-straight missed cuts at the US Open. Since then he has six top-10s in a row with back-to-back second-place finishes in the two most recent.
He said the event "went from probably my least favorite major to probably my favorite because of what it asks from you, and I love that challenge.'
But his scouting trip last week proved a little too challenging. The curated calf-deep rough at Oakmont swallowed up some practice balls. At least this week there are volunteers on hand to help with the search.
"I'm glad we have spotters up there because I played last Monday and you hit a ball off the fairway and you were looking for a good couple of minutes just to find it. It's very penal if you miss. Sometimes it's penal if you don't miss. But the person with the most patience and the best attitude this week is the one that's going to win,' he said, grateful for the early soaking the course has got this week.
'There's definitely been a little bit of rain since that Monday. Last Monday felt impossible. I birdied the last two holes for 81. It felt pretty good. It didn't feel like I played that bad. It's much more benign right now than it was that Monday. They had the pins in dicey locations, and greens were running at 15 1/2. It was nearly impossible.
'But yeah, this morning it felt -- it was a little softer. If you put it in the fairway, it's certainly playable. You get yourself in the way of a few birdies, that's a bonus.'
McIlroy revealed that he also spent parts of the weekend away from the range, hitting the court with caddie Harry Diamond. Intense tennis matches are exactly the kind of thing he would have avoided pre-Augusta.
'I'm trying to have more fun. We're trying to take more trips,' he said.
"We're trying to do things that I enjoy and get back to having hobbies and filling my time with the things that I want to do. But that hasn't just been post-Augusta. I've been trying to do that for a while.
'I've started to play a lot of tennis again. Like Harry and Niall play tennis pretty much every week when we're on the road, and I've always been like, I don't want to injure myself, whatever, but I miss not playing.
"So Harry and I played quite a bit of tennis last weekend, so that was good fun.'