World number 3, Rory McIlroy, dreams of reclaiming the throne occupied for three weeks by his Ryder Cup teammate, Jon Rahm. But Thursday, the Northern Irishman suffered during the first day of the Players at Ponte Vedra Beach.
Not satisfied with his face-offs, he decided to change the driver model.
Rory McIlroy, results
After his morning 76 of the first round and a short “lunch break”, Rory McIlroy took over the driving range and asked his equipment supplier to provide him with an old-generation driver.
Exit the Stealth model with which he won the FedEx Cup last August, it is with the Sim driver 1st version that the winner of the Dubai Desert Classic showed up on the sublime training area of the TPC Sawgrass to try to find better feelings.
Surprisingly, his stats in this area are not that alarming. Even if his precision leaves something to be desired with an average of 183rd place in fairways hit since the start of the season (6/14 on Thursday), he is 10th in Stroke Gained from the tee with 0.8 strokes gained on average on the rest of the driver field in hand.
Over time the face thickness of these modern drivers decreases and I didn’t want to take any chances. But McIlroy hasn’t stopped repeating it since the start of the year, he doesn’t feel comfortable and continues to think about how to improve his accuracy in this part of the game that he certainly considers preponderant in his performance.
At the Genesis Invitational, Rory put the new Taylormade Stealth 2 driver in his bag and explains that the previous one, the one he used in Dubai when he beat Patrick Reed in January, was in danger of no longer passing the standards conformity test.
instances because of an excessive “trampoline effect” according to him. “Over time, the face thickness of these modern drivers decreases and I didn’t want to take any chances. Unfortunately, the sensations with the latest born do not seem to be suitable.
He has already complained about it last week at Bay Hill and Thursday, so it was with the Sim driver from two years ago that he left to hit balls under the eyes of Rickie Fowler. Looking more closely, the data of the player from Hollywood on the evening of this sad first round which rejects him in a worrying 118th provisional place 12 strokes behind the surprising Chad Ramey, it is rather in the small game that the difference between the rest of the field and the former world number 1 was done on Thursday.
Indeed, as can be seen in this report from the excellent site datagolf.com, McIlroy lost 5.42 strokes on the rest of the putting field (PUTT) and around the greens (ARG). Colossal! Since the start, he has even come out better than average with a gain of 1.03 shots but this is not enough to compensate for his approximations in the zone of truth.
