Rory McIlroy - 4 Time Major Winner

Joe_ Public

In a weird way i actually took his suspect driving over the weekend to be one of the big positives. It’s counter intuitive of course, but it tells you how good other, less celebrated aspects of his game were in order to compensate. And the great thing is he hasn’t, you know, become a bad driver of the golf ball after two iffy rounds. If he puts that all together any given day, it will be some powerful combination. Everything very positive in his world right now.

Joe_ Public

prawnsambo wrote: »

For those who were asking, apparently he was wearing a green... ish polo shirt under his top. So that's one less criticism anyway.

That’s good to know. I can now remove the asterisk against the victory in the record book in my head!

backspin.

Interesting that Rory dropped the 3 wood. He had driver and a 19 degree 5 wood.

Keano

rooney30 wrote: »

Davo10 is about one step below being a troll on this thread . Keep him living on scraps

To be fair he is posting a quote from a sport's psychologist.

FixdePitchmark

Dav010 wrote: »

That is not an attempt to discredit him, that is the reality of his game, flashes of brilliance, but regular missed opportunities.

.

Can I ask is there anything wrong with this ? I'll accept I find Rory frustrating, he has had years where he could easily have picked up more wins. But flashes of brilliance when your winning majors is fine for almost every golfers in the history.

Anyway , I'll take another couple of "flashes" when he picks up more majors. This period included.

Yes I'll have to accept Rory just has a completely different motivation level to the sport than I expected. But a few here who have followed the sport and other sports for decades could see this was different. A couple of other posters couldn't get past their dislike for him.

But if you couldn't see that Rory was going to win and go on a significant run. You should really give up any predictions.

Yes it is harder for Rory , the field is stronger. But I'd watch him all day versus these modern day slow playing clones.

Thank something he is back.

BoardsMember

Russman wrote: »

How often do the players in the last group or two out on Sunday shoot the low score of the day ? I don’t know the answer but I’d guess not very often. I do know the winner almost always shoots the lowest score for 72 holes though. So what if others had better Sunday scores ?
Is the argument really coming down to “if someone had shot lower than him he wouldn’t have won” ?? Or “he only won because XXX faded away” - aren’t those true of every tournament result/winner ?

As for whether he was conservative or not, it depends by what standards are we judging him - top tour pro or club amateur ? He started his second shot on 18 well right and maybe he turned it a little too much in the air, maybe he didn’t, only he’ll know for sure. But by starting it so far right it gave him margin for error and could be argued he was being conservative. Maybe he didn’t want to putt down that hill to that front pin from 30 feet right, that’s a steep hill and not an easy two putt. Personally I think he just drew it a hair more than intended.

This seems like a pretty accurate/fair summation for me. I'm not a McIlroy fan at all, but I admire the way he finished. He was 4 under for the last 14 holes on Sunday, and had some good bouncebacks, and the weaker parts of his game were strong too.

prawnsambo

FixdePitchmark wrote: »

Can I ask is there anything wrong with this ? I'll accept I find Rory frustrating, he has had years where he could easily have picked up more wins. But flashes of brilliance when your winning majors is fine for almost every golfers in the history.

Anyway , I'll take another couple of "flashes" when he picks up more majors. This period included.

Yes I'll have to accept Rory just has a completely different motivation level to the sport than I expected. But a few here who have followed the sport and other sports for decades could see this was different. A couple of other posters couldn't get past their dislike for him.

But if you couldn't see that Rory was going to win and go on a significant run. You should really give up any predictions.

Yes it is harder for Rory , the field is stronger. But I'd watch him all day versus these modern day slow playing clones.

Thank something he is back.

This. You should really read Shane Ryan's blow by blow account of Sunday in Golf Digest. Very funny and also a pretty accurate summation of how I felt whilst watching (some of it through my fingers)


Some excerpts:

1:40 p.m.: My stepfather just turned the channel to the Harvard-Yale basketball game, and I rocked back and forth and screamed “Rory” at him until he changed it back. I fear I may be subject to a few mood swings today.

4:05 p.m.: Rahm and his caddie just had a discussion about his upcoming bunker shot on 11, and the caddie told him over and over to lay up, and looked DISTRAUGHT that he wouldn’t listen. And what did he do? Go right into the water. Always listen to the caddie, Jonny boy. Immediately after, someone said “I was so f***ing sure the first time.” I think it was Rahm, which means that along with making a terrible decision, he then blamed his caddie for rocking his confidence. Perhaps not the attitude of a winner …

5:27 p.m.: The dog head cover is off the driver. I’m shaking. Azinger doesn’t like it. I personally believe Rory should use putter, but I might be a coward.

5:38 p.m.: I’ll leave you with a few measured thoughts: Rory is back, everybody else is endangered, and he’s going to win, minimum, three majors this year, and you can etch that in stone. Have my emotions got the better of me? Possibly! But that just means I’m reading the writing on the wall. The king walks among us, and we’ll never be normal again.

Hitch2222

Keano wrote: »

To be fair he is posting a quote from a sport's psychologist.

That's fair enough

Post edited as you know, no point perpetuating this. I don't share many opinions with Davo10 but fair to say various critiques he has of McIlory are similar to those shared by others so fair enough to have them.

Dr Devious

This thread has become quite boring, we'll all be much more the wiser about Rory after the masters, one way or the other.

Remind me

GreeBo wrote: »

The few negative posts *have* to be negative because quite often the positive side always seems to by far outweigh the negative!

fwiw I don't hate him at all and was hoping he would close it out, I just dont think it was a faultless performance (his driving over the weekend for one thing). My first post after the win was pretty balanced imo, but was jumped on anyway, its quite tiresome tbh.

As already said, he short game and especially putting was much improved, driving was poor, but that may be due to time spent on other areas, irons were pretty good bar the occasional dodgy short iron, which he still needs to remove from his game (you cant have a miss that bad with a wedge, its going to cost you sooner or later)

Just saw another stat - he was ranked 2nd in driving last week

Mantis Toboggan

https://twitter.com/JustinRayGolf/status/1108029720078225409?s=19

GreeBo

Remind me wrote: »

Just saw another stat - he was ranked 2nd in driving last week

His driving on the weekend wasn't as good as his driving on Thursday and Friday, or at least that's how it looked to me, do you disagree?

Hitch2222

GreeBo wrote: »

His driving on the weekend wasn't as good as his driving on Thursday and Friday, or at least that's how it looked to me, do you disagree?

You're clutching now.
What's more representative of better performance driving over 2 days or over 4 days?
Even if what you suspect is true, it's less conclusive evidence than that which has been given.

Golfgorfield

GreeBo wrote: »

His driving on the weekend wasn't as good as his driving on Thursday and Friday, or at least that's how it looked to me, do you disagree?

You are like the Souness/Pogba pictures.

You are Souness by the way! Kinda funny but that's your opinion.

Remind me

GreeBo wrote: »

His driving on the weekend wasn't as good as his driving on Thursday and Friday, or at least that's how it looked to me, do you disagree?

As GolfGorfield is going down the football analogy route I’ll quote Rafa ‘fact’

He was 2nd in driving so that’s the fact.

Joe_ Public

GreeBo wrote: »

His driving on the weekend wasn't as good as his driving on Thursday and Friday, or at least that's how it looked to me, do you disagree?

I didnt see the stats, but that would sound fair to me. Definitely missed a good few fairways on saturday and i think sunday too. Though ended up with some tasty lies in bunkers which seemed as good as the short grass!

4068ac1elhodqr

Just seen a reading list of Rory's self-improvement books, no wonder he won.
If only had known of this before backing Fleetwood, ah well.

fullstop

Remind me wrote: »

Just saw another stat - he was ranked 2nd in driving last week

Who needs stats when you have opinions??

If he was 1st he might have won properly

Hitch2222

I assume they normalize for the additional variance that exists in R1 & R2 due to the increased field size.

However even if that occurs, R3 & R4 are likely to have been still quite close to 2nd in ranking.
If not it basically signals that Rory must have been substantially better than the field in R1 & R2 in order to finish 2nd in driving.

GreeBo

Hitch2222 wrote: »

You're clutching now.
What's more representative of better performance driving over 2 days or over 4 days?
Even if what you suspect is true, it's less conclusive evidence than that which has been given.

Clutching?

I observed his driving was worse in the weekend...and I wasn't the only one to do so.
Who said it was representative of anything? It's an observation.

It's exactly this type of nonsense that renders this a love in rather than a discussion forum.

GreeBo

Remind me wrote: »

As GolfGorfield is going down the football analogy route I’ll quote Rafa ‘fact’

He was 2nd in driving so that’s the fact.

That would be a fantastic post if anyone was actually disagreeing with you.

GreeBo

Amari Incalculable Greenhouse wrote: »

Just seen a reading list of Rory's self-improvement books, no wonder he won.
If only had known of this before backing Fleetwood, ah well.

Don't be ridiculous, it's clearly not a psychological issue, that's been explained by our new resident psychologist don't 'cha know...:rolleyes:

GreeBo

GreeBo wrote: »

From what i saw he wasn't being conservative at all, certainly not being left of the point on 18 when there was acres to aim at and let it naturally come in down the right.
Its an interesting point though, with positives and negatives whichever way he was playing!

FYI he confirmed that he had a draw lie and was aiming at RHS of the green and was thinking "Jesus get down!" As it was in the air.

Hitch2222

GreeBo wrote: »

Clutching?

I observed suspect his driving was worse in the weekend...and I wasn't the only one to do so.
Who said it was representative of anything? It's an observation.

It's exactly this type of nonsense that renders this a love in rather than a discussion forum.

You dont know, you suspect as does the other poster. Happy to be wrong as it's largely irrelevant given a 4 round sample is better than a 2 round sample.

I think my remark around clutching and other remarks are largely in light of the fact that your "observation" of poorer driving at the weekend comes hot on the heels of multiple other attempts to criticise his recent performances.

Joe_ Public

Dunno how i got myself dragged into this stuff but yeah i definitely “suspect” his driving was significantly poorer on weekend than first two days. Remember seeing the fairways hit stat during the Saturday coverage and it wasn’t great. Commentary also reflected on it at various stages. But fairly obvious most of them were missing fairways so not so surprising he could still be so highly ranked.

Anyway....stepping away from the fray in 1,2...

Hitch2222

Joe_ Public wrote: »

Dunno how i got myself dragged into this stuff but yeah i definitely “suspect” his driving was significantly poorer on weekend than first two days. Remember seeing the fairways hit stat during the Saturday coverage and it wasn’t great. Commentary also reflected on it at various stages. But fairly obvious most of them were missing fairways so not so surprising he could still be so highly ranked.

Anyway....stepping away from the fray in 1,2...

With all due respect you're not being dragged into anything, at least not by me. I'm simply offering an opinion on the number and highlighting that Greebo didn't show any numbers. I said I'm happy to be wrong either way.

I'm not sure how they calculate driving accuracy in terms of weighting but as I said I don't suspect his first two rounds were so far ahead of the field that they allowed him to be that far from the top of field over the weekend.
Perhaps that as you said is due to an overall drop off among all competitors.

Joe_ Public

Hitch2222 wrote: »

With all due respect you're not being dragged into anything, at least not by me. I'm simply offering an opinion on the number and highlighting that Greebo didn't show any numbers. I said I'm happy to be wrong either way.

I'm not sure how they calculate driving accuracy in terms of weighting but as I said I don't suspect his first two rounds were so far ahead of the field that they allowed him to be that far from the top of field over the weekend.
Perhaps that as you said is due to an overall drop off among all competitors.

“Got myself dragged into it” = dragged myself into it. Was berating myself ;-)

I don’t know the round by round stats so I guess my impression could well be wrong.

Hitch2222

Joe_ Public wrote: »

“Got myself dragged into it” = dragged myself into it. Was berating myself ;-)

I don’t know the round by round stats so I guess my impression could well be wrong.

Apologies if I jumped the gun, I wouldn't like to be viewed as initially antagonistic, I'm merely responding to a number you & Greebo's responded to and made an observation on.
BTW I have no doubts your point regarding overall drop off could be right tbh.

I'm simply saying that in order for McIlroy to have ended up as 2nd in driving accuracy it seems incredibly unlikely that he wasn't highly ranked over the weekend relative to the field. Obviously we can both be correct in this scenario

prawnsambo

Hitch2222 wrote: »

With all due respect you're not being dragged into anything, at least not by me. I'm simply offering an opinion on the number and highlighting that Greebo didn't show any numbers. I said I'm happy to be wrong either way.

I'm not sure how they calculate driving accuracy in terms of weighting but as I said I don't suspect his first two rounds were so far ahead of the field that they allowed him to be that far from the top of field over the weekend.
Perhaps that as you said is due to an overall drop off among all competitors.

His driving accuracy in order are as follows: 71.43%, 78.57%, 28.57% and 57.14%. He said in an interview that he had a problem on Saturday that he went on the range afterwards to fix. Clearly the work he put in got results and although not as good as the first two days, was good enough. Two of his misses on Sunday were to good lies in bunkers, so from the point of view of playability, almost as good as the fairway.

While I disagree with a bit of what greebo is saying Rorys driving on scoring holes over the weekend was below his best, now its only a sample size of 10 holes mianly, so its hard to draw conclusions and he still made plenty of birdies on them besides that.

He made a big enough mistake going into the trees on 16 on saturday but made sure not to make the same mistake it seems on sunday.

It really is tough to gauge anything though from these small sample sizes but it is the only way to talk about a tournament at the same time