McIlroy unleashes during the third round of the Nedbank Golf Challenge at Gary Player CC on November 10, 2018 in Sun City, South Africa. He switched to the new driver the following day. (Photo by Stuart Franklin/Getty Images)
By Kent Gray
Rory McIlroy hopes a new driver will help him rekindle some of his old glory on Earth and turn a “B minus“ year into something slightly more palatable with a third victory in the DP World Tour Championship this week.
The 29-year-old Northern Irishman revealed he’d been struggling with an uncharacteristic “right miss” with his TaylorMade M3 throughout 2018 on the eve of the 10th edition of the Race to Dubai decider at Jumeriah Golf Estates.
A TaylorMade club-fitter walked the first three rounds of last week’s Nedbank Golf Challenge in Sun City where McIlroy finished T21 to end his slim hopes of a third DP World-Race to Dubai double after achieving that feat in 2012 and 2015. The upside at Gary Player’s tournament was a fourth round of 71 when McIlroy drove it better with a tweaked version of the M3.
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“I’ve had that right miss in the bag with the driver pretty much all year and it’s never been a shot that I’ve had,” McIlroy said.
“If anything, I see maybe a little draw [even on straight holes], and I haven’t been able to do that this year. So I’ve sort of been playing against my natural instincts, which sometimes is tough to trust.
McIlroy has had no issue finding fairways with his 3-wood or 5-wood and has already seen benefits from the new big stick with a swing weight adjustment in the head and a new shaft.
“It’s better, this driver. Even some of the shots I hit on Sunday in Sun City, I felt if I had of put the same swing on it with the other driver, it would have been in the bushes right, but it actually was hanging in there which is great to see. That’s a big positive coming into this week.”
By most standards, McIlroy has had an acceptable 2018. He’s 6th on the Race to Dubai standings coming into the week with €2.89 million and won the Arnold Palmer Invitational en-route to finishing T-13 in the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup standings with $4.41 million in earnings.
But the four-time major champion isn’t judged by mortal standards and admits his runner-up finish to Haotong Li at this year’s Desert Classic “was one let get away” and still grates. He also finished runner-up to Francesco Molinari at the 147th Open Championship and has endured a few too many Sundays in contention when his driver hasn’t co-operated.
“I’d maybe give it like a B minus, and a win this week would get it up to a B,” McIlroy said when asked to rate his season.
“I don’t want to continue to dwell on the negatives. There’s been a lot of positives in there, as well. I’ve played very consistently. I’ve had 10 top-10s. I finished second and had a great chance to win The Open. I played in the final group and had a great chance to win the Masters. I’ve had chances to win big, big tournaments.
“Yeah, look, results-wise, it hasn’t been the year that I wanted, even though I feel — I played in six final groups, and in ‘16 and ‘17 combined, I played in three or four final groups. That’s been a real big positive.
“Obviously the game’s right there. It’s just a matter of doing it when I need to do it most There’s a difference between getting into those final groups and finishing the job off, and finishing the job off hasn’t been quite where I’ve wanted it to be. So that’s something to work on next year, and the only way you’re going to get better at it is by putting yourself in those positions and learning from each and every one of them.”
Which brings us back to the driver.
“I drove it well parts of the year, but then whenever I got into final groups and under pressure, that right shot began to become more apparent,” he said.
“I think back to the first tee shot at Augusta on Sunday; Wentworth on the final day; Akron, final day; TOUR Championship, final day. The reason I didn’t play better was because I didn’t put the ball in the fairway, and the reason I didn’t put the ball in the fairway is because I have this right miss with the driver.
“The thing is, if I can hit my 3-wood good, I can hit my 5-wood good, I can hit my irons good, I can hit my wedges good. Then my thing is, okay, there might be a slight fault with the swing but it’s not so much of a fault that the other clubs have went awry, as well, so it’s just this one club.
“Basically that’s what we’ve got to this with driver: Lighter swing weight, and I don’t have to work as hard at it to get it back in front of me on the way down, so just little things like that.
“You’re always trying to make your equipment help you as much as you can. I guess the technology is so good nowadays, you can do certain things to negate your misses.”
McIlroy admitted the late season change is bitter-sweet as he’ll likely be putting the the next iteration of TaylorMade equipment into his bag next season. But he won’t grumble too much if he can keep in play on Earth to end his year on a high.
“The driver is a huge club around here. It always has been. There’s a lot of bunkers on holes that are around 300 [yard] carry, and if you can do that, it gives you massive advantage.
“That’s one of the reasons I’ve done so well around here is because I can hit the ball in the air a long way and if you hit it pretty accurately, you’re going to have a big advantage over the rest of the field.”
