Rory McIlroy’s driver issues will be punished like never before at Oakmont
There is tough and there is Oakmont tough. “I played last week and birdied the last two – for an 81,” Rory McIlroy revealed. He was laughing as he said it, but inside a sizeable chunk of the Northern Irishman must be dreading the 125th US Open.
The good news for the field is that the test has softened in the last seven days. “There’s been some rain since and it’s much more benign,” McIlroy said. “It was nearly impossible that Monday.”
The bad news for McIlroy is that the rough remains brutal, and there will be no chance to launch birdie-escapology after errant tee shots, as it was at Augusta two months ago when he completed the career grand slam.
“A bit like at the Players [which he also won earlier this year], you can play recovery golf at the Masters, find gaps through the trees from the pine needles,” he said. “This place won’t let you do that. You’ve got to chop your ball out and then just try to make a par with a wedge in your hand. It’s much, much more penal if you do miss. So hopefully I can hit a few more fairways than I have been hitting and give myself some opportunities.”
It is fair to say that McIlroy did not sound overly convinced about his candidature here this week. In fact, his mood was flat and his body language portrayed that of a legendary sharpshooter going into a Mexican stand-off knowing that his duelling pistol is wonky and misfiring. McIlroy announced that he was pleased with his emergency sessions last weekend after a missed cut at the Canadian Open and feels more confident off the tee. “What did I learn?” he said. “I learnt that I wasn’t using the right driver.”
Equipment yarns are never the most gripping for the uninitiated outsiders, but McIlroy’s troubles with the club he loves most, and in which many respects has defined his career, have been intriguing.
At last month’s US PGA Championship, he declined to talk to the press after it had been leaked that his Qi10 driver with which he had conquered Augusta had failed a random test. Over time, the faces become thinner and thus springier, and it is routine for drivers suddenly to become non-conforming. He had done nothing wrong – this is routine on tour – but McIlroy was forced to switch heads two days before the start of the season’s major.
The same fate befell Scottie Scheffler and the world No 1 shrugged off the distraction to lift the Wanamaker Trophy. McIlroy was asked on Tuesday if the late change had affected his challenge at Quail Hollow, where he finished tied 47th. “It wasn’t a big deal for Scottie, so it shouldn’t have been a big deal for me,” he said.
Maybe, but McIlroy is not Scheffler and has previously admitted that he finds it difficult to jump from one head to the next. “Every driver sort of has its own character,” he said here. What is clear is that the personality of the TaylorMade Qi35 does not suit, because he has gone back to the Qi10 model and immediately located at least a tad of positivity. He and TaylorMade will pray this is the end of the saga.
His many admirers will also be craving for a switch in the McIlroy narrative since his Augusta glory (when after an 11-year major drought, he finally joined Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Gene Sarazen and Ben Hogan in winning all four majors). McIlroy concedes that the issue has not just been technical, but emotional as well.
“It’s just been trying to find the motivation to go back out there and work as hard as I’ve been working,” he said. “I worked incredibly hard on my game from October last year, all the way up until April this year, and it was nice to sort of see the fruits of my labour and have everything happen.
“You have to enjoy what you’ve just accomplished, but at some point, you have to realise that there’s more golf left to play this season – here, Royal Portrush [in next month’s Open], the Ryder Cup [in New York in September]. Those are obviously the three big things I’m looking at for the rest of the year.
“But, I do believe that after chasing a goal for the better part of a decade and a half, and finally achieving it, that I’m allowed a little bit of time to relax. However, here at Oakmont, I certainly can’t relax this week.”
Indeed, there is no respite on this remorseless examination, where balls will be lost in the thick stuff, where four-foot putts will run off these treacherous greens and where temperaments will boil over into the self-detrimental.
In this shape, with his driving so suspect and with the hangover remaining so eminently evident, McIlroy cannot be fancied to equal Sir Nick Faldo’s European record of six majors. But golf can be decidedly odd and, as he has been handed a dream draw for the first two rounds alongside his close friend Shane Lowry, and another ally in Masters runner-up Justin Rose, the world No 2 could fix his radar and quickly rediscover that swagger and elan. No more 81s, however.
