PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Florida – “What are you most frustrated with?”
The question hung in the air for 10, 15, 20 seconds.
Rory McIlroy was behind the microphone, gently tossing a ball back and forth.
“Um …”, he started, seeming to weigh how deep he wanted to dive, before finally diving:
“Probably the balance problems and where it all originated from.”
He meant last October. And speed training. And the adjustments that made your swing very long, very flat, very rotational.
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In the weeks following the US Open, and with some time to kill before a West Coast series started and the Masters, McIlroy hit the pilots, increased their speed and pushed their swing to the maximum. Despite having a structure of 5 feet and 9 inches, he is already the longest hitter, pound for pound, on the PGA Tour, ranking first in driving distance in 2017 and 18 and finishing in the top 4 in each the last five years.
But after the United States Open, the game changed – or so he thought. He wanted more. I needed more.
“I would be lying if I said it has nothing to do with what Bryson did at the US Open,” he said.
In fact, at the time – and even more so in retrospect – this seemed like a transformative moment, not only for DeChambeau, but also for his colleagues. Towards the United States Open, McIlroy finally recovered from his summer malaise, posting in the top 12 in consecutive matches before arriving at Pé Alado. After a strong opening round, McIlroy was directly in the mix, desperate to end a seven-year drought in the major ones. Stars scored the first leaderboards. And yet DeChambeau surprised them, winning by six strokes and killing one of the most ferocious courses on the planet. Its dramatic transformation has been validated – weight gain, speed gain, distance gain. All of it. He bombed the furthest, placed him closer and placed him among the best. How are you going to get over it?
“The one thing that people don’t appreciate is how good Bryson is out of trouble,” said McIlroy. “Not just because of how upright he is, but because his short irons are longer than the standard, so he can get a little more speed through the rough than other guys.”
But McIlroy chased the speed as well. A bunch of guys did. Dustin Johnson tried. Tony Finau experimented. If this is the path the game is taking, if this is how the courses will be configured, yes, they wanted an advantage too.
“It helps,” said McIlroy, who gained 5 km / h in his swing speed last season. “It really helps.”
Except that not every player on the Tour has the shape of DeChambeau. Not every player swings like him. Not every player sets up his equipment like he does. That’s why it’s easy to chase speed … and get off track.
“I felt like it was the childhood where these swing problems came from,” said McIlroy. “So, it’s just a matter of trying to get out of this.”
McIlroy was speaking on Friday after missing the cut in his defense of the title here at The Players Championship. Rounds of 79-75 could have easily been dismissed as just a bad week, but it was coming, somehow. Wanting to throw his way into shape after a two-month hiatus, McIlroy signed up for an ambitious schedule: seven events in eight weeks, culminating here in the main PGA Tour event. Over the past few months, there have been some good points, with four top-10s, but at the end of this period he was fried. He had neither energy nor momentum, and his confidence waned. “I used to think that four weeks in a row was nothing,” he said, but he is now 31, in pain and missing a few nights in his own bed.
McIlroy’s search for distance backfires the players
Of course, that’s not why McIlroy fought here at TPC Sawgrass, where he finished 10 off the line and 19 against leader Lee Westwood. He did nothing well, nothing, staying out of the top 140 on both the tee and the green. This was growing: the inconsistent iron game. Sunday retreats in Abu Dhabi and San Diego and Orlando. Last Sunday at Bay Hill, after the final 76th round, he wondered out loud if he needed to “go the other way”, not in terms of personnel change, but with his swing. He then knew what he said again on Friday: The problems he’s been in for the past few months can’t be solved with just a few quality break sessions at home.
“It will take a while,” he said. “It’s not like it’s going that far. I would still like to maintain the speed, but not just make the oscillations that are producing that speed. “
The past few weeks have highlighted how DeChambeau remains a few steps ahead of its biggest threats. A month ago, he acknowledged that he was reaching a point of diminishing returns. He lost a dozen pounds. He stabilized his speed training. He switched to a driver’s head that spins more and travels less, but keeps him in play. It’s working: he won last week at Bay Hill and is among the top 5 again here at TPC Sawgrass, evolving and adapting on two courses that are totally disparate tests for the biggest bomber on the Tour.
As for McIlroy, well, he’s going about four hours south on Interstate 95, humiliated and trying to make up for what was lost.
“I want to get on the field right away and try to get over it,” he said. “I am very determined to go back to where I know I can be.”