Rory McIlroy is one of the favourites going into this week’s PGA Championship and Butch Harmon has shared just what he worked on with the Northern Irishman recently.
A lot was made of McIlroy going to see Harmon a month or so back and since then, the 34-year-old has won the Zurich with Shane Lowry and dominated the Wells Fargo Championship last week.
Going into the PGA Championship at Valhalla this week, McIlroy is expected to challenge.
Of course, to win against the likes of Scottie Scheffler and everyone else, McIlroy will need all parts of his game to be on point.
Everyone knows driving is McIlroy’s big strength and on his day, he can blitz the field off the tee.
But his visit to Harmon has explored other areas of his game and more specifically, his play a bit closer to the greens.
Butch Harmon reveals exactly what he worked on with Rory McIlroy
Speaking on the Son of a Butch podcast, Harmon confirmed some of the work he did with McIlroy was focussed on a specific area of his game.
“The work I did with him wasn’t a tremendous amount of changing what he did, it was his attitude and the way he played certain shots,” Harmon explained.
“From 150 yards and in he made a full swing like he was hitting a driver and I wanted him to make more 3 quarter swings and chop the follow threw off a little.
“He’s a very high ball hitter, but with short irons high balls aren’t good, it’s hard to control, we wanted to bring the ball flight down.”
McIlroy’s trip to Harmon is paying off
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There’s a reason why Butch Harmon is respected as one of the very best around in terms of golf coaching and it does look like he’s worked his magic again here.
McIlroy looks in superb form and with a potential monkey off his back as well in terms of his personal life, the pressure is off really at Valhalla this week.
Harmon has clearly seen something very minor in McIlroy’s game and then worked on that aspect with him.
Harmon has previously mentioned the 150 yards and in but the detail about the 3/4 swing and lower ball flight is a real nugget of information.
It’s interesting Harmon mentions Rory’s ‘attitude’ to certain shots as well. That is something McIlroy has had chucked at him for a while, in terms of taking on shots that might not be the sensible play.
Now, though, it looks like the four-time major winner is very much close to his best.
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