Trying to sum up how good Rory McIlroy has been at the start of the 2025 PGA Tour season is no easy task, with the Northern Irishman making a real statement ahead of The Masters.
On paper, Rory McIlroy has been the outstanding player on the PGA Tour at the start of the year. The 35-year-old has won twice stateside before April for the first time in his career, with victories coming at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and The Players Championship.
Oddly however, most fans will have surely seen McIlroy play significantly better at other times in his career. The four-time major champion has hardly found top gear over the opening months of the year. But crucially, he has found ways to win while well short of his best.
McIlroy noted that he has added shots to his game following his win at TPC Sawgrass, with one eye on The Masters. One of the most notable moments came in the playoff with J.J. Spaun when he managed to comfortably find the green on 17 with a knockdown shot.
How Harry Diamond has been encouraging Rory McIlroy to change his game
It is a sign that he is collecting all of the tools required to potentially win around Augusta National. And it seems that no-one will be happier about that than the man who has been on his bag for several years now, Harry Diamond.
Speaking on The Second Cut Podcast, Mark Immelman shared how he had spoken to both McIlroy and Diamond about the changes to the game, and it seems that McIlroy needed a lot of convincing.
“I saw that 64 he shot at Pebble on Saturday in those horrible conditions and just about every shot Rory hits was off speed, except for the driver naturally – that thing was ripped. He goes, ‘no, I’m just hitting chippy iron shots’. And I joked, I said to him, ‘you should do this all the time’, because when he flighted the ball down, not only did the wedge play improve, you talk about distance control, he hit the number every single time. And when you hit the ball hole high, naturally proximity begins to improve. And so, he becomes a birdie making machine,” he said.
“And so, then I saw he and Harry ahead of the final round at the Genesis Invitational, Tiger’s event, and I’m on the range chatting with them, and so I said to Rory, ‘so, how’s it going?’ And he goes, ‘it’s against my natural impulse’, this is hitting the soft shot, and a non-aggressive shot, more onto the safe side of the flag a la Scottie. And he goes, ‘it’s against my natural impulse, but I’m sticking to it’.
“I laughed and I looked at Harry and I’m like, ‘how long have you been asking him to do this?’ And he goes, ‘probably the last 10 years’, and we all laughed about it. I’m like ‘well, long may this continue’.
“Anyway, he didn’t play so well there. And then we go to The Players Championship, and I saw Rory win an event playing terribly. It was nowhere close to what he was capable of playing, but he still found a way to manage his way around the golf course. He played really well; the 67 he put together in round one was kind of scrappy, then he drove the ball better. And there was this in and out, and so to me now, it’s the fact that here’s McIlroy, because he’s playing smarter, he’s flighting the ball more, he’s going flat out when he can, not all the time. It’s like when he doesn’t have his A game, then he can still find a way to win – very much like a Tiger Woods. And that’s what Scottie does.”
Further proof that criticism of Rory McIlroy’s caddie has been unfair
It feels particularly significant that it is Diamond who has apparently been pushing for McIlroy to make the change. Ultimately, he was not even on his bag a decade ago, so it says something if he really has been encouraging his longtime friend to switch things up for that amount of time.
Diamond has come in for a lot of criticism over the years. Many felt McIlroy needed a stronger caddie during the final round of the US Open after two tee shots in the final four holes which really cost him at Pinehurst.
Meanwhile, McIlroy swore at a heckler at the Genesis Invitational after they had told him to blame his caddie for a missed putt on that final day.
Clearly, only McIlroy and Diamond will know whether they get the balance right with their interactions on the course. But, judging by Immelman’s comments, it does seem that McIlroy would have been wise to listen to his caddie a lot sooner when it comes to his shotmaking capabilities.
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