Rory McIlroy has endured a number of tough moments throughout the 2024 campaign, and in a bid to improve the Northern Irishman has put himself through an intense three weeks
Rory McIlroy has endured a number of tough moments throughout the 2024 campaign, and in a bid to improve the Northern Irishman has put himself through an intense three weeks Rory McIlroy has endured a number of tough moments throughout the 2024 campaign, and in a bid to improve the Northern Irishman has put himself through an intense three weeks
Rory McIlroy has revealed he locked himself away in a swing room for three weeks to overcome a recent problem with his golf swing heading into the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship.
It has been a year of near-misses for McIlroy, who was left heartbroken at the US Open in June after surrendering a two-shot lead with four holes to play to Bryson DeChambeau. A catalogue of errors across the final stretch of holes at Pinehurst No. 2 denied McIlroy his fifth major title and first in 10 years.
Since then, the Northern Irishman has finished runner-up on two more occasions, first at his home event, the Irish Open at Royal County Down, before losing out in a playoff to Billy Horschel at the BMW PGA Championship.
These defeats have no doubt taken their toll on McIlroy both physically in his golf swing as well as mentally. And in a bid to combat this, the 35-year-old opted to practice indoors for three weeks straight in order to get his game in shape ahead of the first DP World Tour playoff event in the Middle East.
“I probably haven’t liked the shape of my golf swing for a while, especially the backswing,” he said on Wednesday. “The only way I was going to make a change or at least move in the right direction with my swing was to lock myself in a studio and not see the ball flight for a bit and just focus entirely on the movement.
“So did that for three weeks after the Dunhill [Links Championship]. Started to get outside and hit some shots last week and see how it is. I’m terrible at if I’m trying to make a certain swing or a certain swing change, and I start to mis-strike it or not hit the shots that I want, I’ll just revert back to what I was doing because it’s comfortable.”
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Despite taking drastic action, McIlroy claimed his swing changes are still a work in progress. “I think doing this in the studio, it was a big key for me to just try to make a start on getting the swing back to where I want it to be. But it’s an ongoing process, as you know, to get out here and play.
“When there’s sequences to the shots that you hit, you’re always going to revert back to what’s comfortable. Hopefully the more that I do over these next few months, it will bed in and get back to the shape I want to be in.” Despite a number of near-misses, McIlroy’s season has still been an impressive one.
The four-time major winner leads the way in the Race to Dubai Rankings and knows a good showing at Yas Links from Thursday to Sunday could well wrap up a sixth season-long title on the DP World Tour. Keen to get the job done early – as he did last campaign – McIlroy added: “I’m focussed on this week.
“If I can play well this week, play really well this week, then next week won’t matter, for me, anyway. I’ll still want to go out and play well and try to win the golf tournament, but I know that I can make life a lot easier for myself with a good week this week. Fully focussed on that.”
Mirror – Sport
