Rory McIlroy - 4 Time Major Winner

Dav010

prawnsambo wrote: »

Last ten tournaments. You could probably say that about two of his last three, but it doesn't seem to be a pattern. Four 67 finishes there (seven <70). But also three 70+. I'd say it's just golf.

Tournament|Place|Rd 1|Rd 2|Rd 3|Rd 4
Arnold Palmer|T5|66|73|73|76
WGC Mexico|5|65|69|68|68
Genesis|T5|68|67|68|73
Farmers|T3|67|73|67|69
DP World TC|4|64|74|65|73
WGC HSBC|1|67|67|67|68
Zozo|T3|72|65|63|67
Dunhill|T26|70|66|70|67
BMW PGA|T9|70|66|70|67
Omega|T2|67|63|69|67

Seventh consecutive top five finish on PGA Tour, a feat last achieved by one Tiger Woods. But the limitation with stats is they tell you the “what”, but not always the “why”. There have been a number of opportunities to win missed.

Kauto

Kauto wrote: »

Another missed opportunity for McIlroy. Another failure to get it done in the final round. You can set your watch by him. Rory on his B game can get into contention in any of these tournaments. The failure of people to criticise him when he should clearly have wiped the floor with that field from the position he was in.
Hopefully he is within a shot or two on Sunday and he will be a full bank lay. There must be a serious mental block developing with his failure to convert all these chances.

Nobody was going to wipe the floor with anybody given the course conditions but hey everyone is entitled to their opinion.

prawnsambo

Dav010 wrote: »

Seventh consecutive top five finish on PGA Tour, a feat last achieved by one Tiger Woods. But the limitation with stats is they tell you the “what”, but not always the “why”. There have been a number of opportunities to win missed.

Yeah. Just posted that more as an indicator of nothing much at all in response to the idea that it was the last round that was hurting him. We could actually see what the issue was last weekend: Driving accuracy. Once you get in that cabbage at Bay Hill, you're looking at bogey unless you get a very lucky lie.

These days, it seems you need four good rounds to win a tournament. Or two good ones, a bad one and an absolute peach.

OEP

He hasn't actually been playing very well in the last few tournaments, despite his top 5 finishes. His driving is nowhere near it's best and his putting has been a little bit suspect too.

GreeBo

prawnsambo wrote: »

Yeah. Just posted that more as an indicator of nothing much at all in response to the idea that it was the last round that was hurting him. We could actually see what the issue was last weekend: Driving accuracy. Once you get in that cabbage at Bay Hill, you're looking at bogey unless you get a very lucky lie.

These days, it seems you need four good rounds to win a tournament. Or two good ones, a bad one and an absolute peach.

Rather than just the 4th round it seems that he always throws in 1 round thats over par or behind what everyone else is doing.

It might just be that his other 3 rounds are so good that the bad/normal one stands out, but it looks like he could/should win every tournament if that bad round wasn't quite so bad, which not many of the other guys can say.

So, is it better to shoot 4 70s or 66-68-68-78?
Obviously frequently shooting in the 60s shows more talent, but throwing in that 78 would be pretty frustrating if it happens a lot.

On the driving, some of the choices seemed crazy. Repeatedly hitting driver across the water/corner only to bury yourself in deep rough behind trees just wasnt the right call.

GreeBo

OEP wrote: »

He hasn't actually been playing very well in the last few tournaments, despite his top 5 finishes. His driving is nowhere near it's best and his putting has been a little bit suspect too.

In fairness some of his putting while he was still in contention was very good, hold a lot of good par/bogey putts that would have otherwise had him well down the leaderboard.

Mantis Toboggan

Yeah his driving accuracy isn't where it needs to be and with how Bay Hill was setup he was always going to struggle at some point. He actually done really well to finish where he did, alot of top golfers where along way behind.

Russman

OEP wrote: »

He hasn't actually been playing very well in the last few tournaments, despite his top 5 finishes. His driving is nowhere near it's best and his putting has been a little bit suspect too.

I tend to mostly agree with this, although I'm not sure the putting is all that bad, for him. He's never going to be a top putter, but if he can stay sort of middle to top half of the pack in putting he'll win plenty, and if he has a particularly good week with the putter he'll win by a mile. Lets face it, no one has ever had the full package and been excellent in all aspects of the game.

I'm a big fan, but I don't know whether its a positive that he's stringing all these top 5s together almost no matter how bad he plays, seemingly on auto-pilot, or whether to be completely frustrated watching him fritter shots away and still be in the hunt week in week out.

OEP

He's been stringing all of these results together for over 12 months now and has 4 wins, so it's hardly that bad of a return! Just needs to win a major this year

tobsey

GreeBo wrote: »

On the driving, some of the choices seemed crazy. Repeatedly hitting driver across the water/corner only to bury yourself in deep rough behind trees just wasnt the right call.

He’s the best driver on tour though. If he doesn’t use that he’s giving up his main advantage on the field. The fact that he’s still in contention when his main weapon is a bit off shows how strong he is overall, but he relies on getting a couple of shots per round off the tee.

As it was people couldn’t even hold the greens from the fairway on Sunday, so the tactic of getting as far up as possible might have been the right one. Hitting it in someone’s back garden wasn’t a great execution though!

GreeBo

tobsey wrote: »

He’s the best driver on tour though. If he doesn’t use that he’s giving up his main advantage on the field. The fact that he’s still in contention when his main weapon is a bit off shows how strong he is overall, but he relies on getting a couple of shots per round off the tee.

100% agree, but on that hole it was costing him rather than benefiting him, so they should have figured out between them that it wasnt the right choice. For the distance he hits it, the fairway was super narrow and curving away from him.

As it was people couldn’t even hold the greens from the fairway on Sunday, so the tactic of getting as far up as possible might have been the right one. Hitting it in someone’s back garden wasn’t a great execution though!

Yeah but he couldnt even get it out of the rough the day before

tobsey

GreeBo wrote: »

100% agree, but on that hole it was costing him rather than benefiting him, so they should have figured out between them that it wasnt the right choice. For the distance he hits it, the fairway was super narrow and curving away from him.



Yeah but he couldnt even get it out of the rough the day before

That was pretty shocking alright. Whatever about the first shot that was buried, failing to find the fairway with the second chip out was criminal. The double there and the OOB drive cost him a playoff. They’re pretty fine margins over a four day tournament. Even the best players need a bit of luck to get a win. Hopefully he gets some on the right weeks this year.

prawnsambo

tobsey wrote: »

He’s the best driver on tour though. If he doesn’t use that he’s giving up his main advantage on the field. The fact that he’s still in contention when his main weapon is a bit off shows how strong he is overall, but he relies on getting a couple of shots per round off the tee.

As it was people couldn’t even hold the greens from the fairway on Sunday, so the tactic of getting as far up as possible might have been the right one. Hitting it in someone’s back garden wasn’t a great execution though!

Yeah. His shots gained off the tee in the 15 PGA tour events counted this season is 2.4. That is a big advantage. But his fairways hit at 56% is probably hurting him by a few shots a tournament as well. Another interesting one is that his bunker play hasn't been great either. Converting less than 50% of them into par saves. Still not a game breaker since he's averaging just over 2 bunker shots per tournament. The driving accuracy is the one that really needs work. I accept that he hits it so far that he's going to be in trouble more than most, but it's still costing him shots.

I'm not convinced that taking a shorter club off the tee is the answer either. Often if the driver isn't working, the 3 wood isn't working either. He kinda needs the driver working well at Sawgrass anyway. Reachable par 5s and a drivable par 4 make it a course that should reward him. Will be interesting.

GreeBo

prawnsambo wrote: »

I'm not convinced that taking a shorter club off the tee is the answer either. Often if the driver isn't working, the 3 wood isn't working either.

In this instance a shorter club would land in a much wider area, he could probably have hit a 2-3 iron and still made the green without difficulty.

prawnsambo

GreeBo wrote: »

In this instance a shorter club would land in a much wider area, he could probably have hit a 2-3 iron and still made the green without difficulty.

I think he only carries a 3 iron, but I take your point, there wasn't much room in his preferred landing area on that hole. Birdied it on Thursday, but parred it the rest of the time, once from the bunker on the left.

Dav010

https://m.independent.ie/sport/golf/mcilroy-i-need-to-work-on-playing-the-percentages-39035068.html

Interesting read in today’s Indo, comments from the man himself about percentages, shot choice at critical times, and good/bad top 5’s.

BoardsMember

Good to hear he's identifying course management/decisions as contributory. Don't have huge confidence he'll sort it. Notice the difference between his "I" versus other players "We" talking through the round & decisions made. The caddy relationship/balance doesn't seem to be right.

Russman

BoardsMember wrote: »

Good to hear he's identifying course management/decisions as contributory. Don't have huge confidence he'll sort it. Notice the difference between his "I" versus other players "We" talking through the round & decisions made. The caddy relationship/balance doesn't seem to be right.

I think he's always had a stubborn streak but you'd hope he'll sort it - I don't think he needs to change a whole lot or change his whole approach or game, its just incidents like he mentioned in the article, take the car crash number out of play. Hopefully hindsight and reflection will help him.

I don't really read too much into the "I" versus "we" when players discuss or give interviews etc., to be honest my opinion on that is that its really only become a thing in the last few years, I can't really remember anyone saying it before maybe the likes of Danny Willett or Speith.........

Of course there's the old caddy joke of "we had 3 birdies and then he had a bogey"

Dav010

Russman wrote: »

I think he's always had a stubborn streak but you'd hope he'll sort it - I don't think he needs to change a whole lot or change his whole approach or game, its just incidents like he mentioned in the article, take the car crash number out of play. Hopefully hindsight and reflection will help him.

I don't really read too much into the "I" versus "we" when players discuss or give interviews etc., to be honest my opinion on that is that its really only become a thing in the last few years, I can't really remember anyone saying it before maybe the likes of Danny Willett or Speith.........

Of course there's the old caddy joke of "we had 3 birdies and then he had a bogey"

Yip, can’t remember the exact phrase, something like, success has many fathers, failure is an orphan.

Rippeditup

It was different when with JP but since he has gone Rory seems to be making the decisions on the course as his caddy is his mate and not a professional caddy.. He is a good golfer and knows Rory well but learning the trade so looks more like Rory has taken on that responsibility himself.

in fairness you could swear he was a million miles away, he is always in contention these days and will win one soon.

prawnsambo

Rippeditup wrote: »

It was different when with JP but since he has gone Rory seems to be making the decisions on the course as his caddy is his mate and not a professional caddy.. He is a good golfer and knows Rory well but learning the trade so looks more like Rory has taken on that responsibility himself.

in fairness you could swear he was a million miles away, he is always in contention these days and will win one soon.

Literally the biggest criticism of the Rory/JP partnership was that they never seemed to communicate on the course. Harry Diamond comes along and there's now a lot more communication.

Dav010

prawnsambo wrote: »

Literally the biggest criticism of the Rory/JP partnership was that they never seemed to communicate on the course. Harry Diamond comes along and there's now a lot more communication.

The dynamic/importance of the caddy/player relationship is difficult to gauge. I suspect a lot of caddies are there to literally carry the bag and keep the player company on their travels (I remember Mciillroy saying that JP was as much a friend and companion as a colleague when he was being slated after the Masters in 2012), others are very much involved in on-course decision making, examples of this are Spieth/Mickelson/early Tiger years with Steve Williams/Fanny. I’d say it really depends on the player’s personality, not all will take advice. But if they do respect the caddies opinion, sometimes it is most important when things are going wrong. In my opinion, another perspective at crucial times might benefit Mcillroy, to save him from his instincts to go for it. Would he listen? Only he knows. Harry isn’t some hacker, he won the West a few years ago and seems like a cool head, he is probably better on the bag than the likes of Williams who would get up a lot of players noses.

Mantis Toboggan

Rippeditup wrote: »

It was different when with JP but since he has gone Rory seems to be making the decisions on the course as his caddy is his mate and not a professional caddy.. He is a good golfer and knows Rory well but learning the trade so looks more like Rory has taken on that responsibility himself.

How is he not a professional caddy? If he's working full time getting paid caddying surely he's a professional!

Dav010

Mantis Toboggan wrote: »

How is he not a professional caddy? If he's working full time getting paid caddying surely he's a professional!

Maybe the fact that he had no previous experience as a caddy before picking up the bag for one of the worlds top, and most excitable players , is what was meant. I don’t know, but It might be fair to assume most of the top players have experienced caddies.

OEP

People look way too much into the player caddy dynamic. It's completely personal to each player, and how do we know how often Harry says something to him.

prawnsambo

Dav010 wrote: »

Maybe the fact that he had no previous experience as a caddy before picking up the bag for one of the worlds top, and most excitable players , is what was meant. I don’t know, but It might be fair to assume most of the top players have experienced caddies.

But they don't really. DJ has his brother Austin, Reed has his brother in law (after his wife had their first kid), Lee Westwood has his current gf on the bag, Kpepka has an ex-player (since 2017) Ricky Elliot and Jordan Spieth's caddy is his school maths teacher.

Rikand

And its not as if Harry is just a mate who knows nothing about golf. He was once a +4 handicap golfer who regularly competed at the latter end of provincial tournaments for a number of years.

Remind me

Rikand wrote: »

And its not as if Harry is just a mate who knows nothing about golf. He was once a +4 handicap golfer who regularly competed at the latter end of provincial tournaments for a number of years.

Won provincial championships and represented Ireland

Bubbaclaus

He also played in the Irish Open in 2012.

prawnsambo

Bubbaclaus wrote: »

He also played in the Irish Open in 2012.

He also used to regularly play with Rory in practice rounds. The only person who would know his game more is Michael Bannon.