Tiger Woods, who is at home recuperating from ankle surgery, gave some recent advice to friend, Rory McIlroy. Basically, the two golfing greats exchanged thoughts about ball striking,
Tiger noticed a detail and sent McIlroy a text message. The next thing you know, Rory McIlroy was spending several hours at Tiger Woods’ ocean-front estate in Jupiter Island, Florida.
The in-person meeting between the two happened last Friday. Woods isn’t competing right now because of his ankle. But McIlroy is readying for Thursday’s start of the PGA, which is at Oak Hill Country Club outside Rochester, N.Y. The PGA is the second of four Grand Slams on the golf schedule.
McIlroy’s game hasn’t been all that of late. In his last three tour events, he missed the cut at the PLAYERS Championship and the Masters. Then he tied for 47th at the Wells Fargo at Quails Hollow. We’re not sure what Tiger saw in Rory McIlroy’s swing. However, if McIlroy suddenly turns things around later this week, we’ll know something worked.
Reporters asked McIlroy about his recent problems during his pre-PGA media availability. McIlroy went into specifics.
“Yeah, just the club getting a little bit out of position at the top and then sort of the sequence of events that follow from there,” McIlroy said. “Club face was getting a bit too open on the way back, really struggling to square it on the way down, and then sort of re-closure was getting a little too fast, throwing my hands on it, and sorta started to get the miss going both ways, especially at Quail Hollow.”
He continued to explain what was going on with his swing. “Trying to sort of tighten the start lines up a little bit, keep a little bit more strength in the club face, feel a little bit more squareness throughout the swing,” McIlroy added. “That’s sort of what I’ve been working on over the last week or so.”
Statistics show McIlroy is having issues. He’s only 193rd in driving accuracy this season. And he’s dropped from 12th to 172nd in greens in regulation. McIlroy’s best finish of the 2023 calendar year was at the prestigious Arnold Palmer Invitational in early March. He finished in a tie for second. McIlroy tied for 32nd to open his year at the Phoenix Open. And he tied for 29th at The Genesis Invitational. However, he appeared to right his game at the Arnold Palmer tournament. Then it fell apart at The Players. McIlroy continued his roller-coaster season by beating Scottie Scheffler to win third place at WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play. But then his game tanked at Quail Hollow at the Wells Fargo. That’s a tournament he’s won three times.
He’ll tee off Thursday at 8:11 a.m. playing in a three-some that includes Justin Thomas and Collin Morikawa. Maybe a little bit of Tiger will go a long way for Rory McIlroy.
