Rory McIlroy will be hoping for better at The Players this week than the Arnold Palmer Invitational and Smylie Kaufman has asked some serious questions over the club changes McIlroy made at Bay Hill.
McIlroy played steadily enough around Bay Hill but failed to break 70 once. Indeed, McIlroy admitted he made an error in changing some of his clubs for the opening three rounds, before switching back for the final round.
Furthermore, Ryan Lavner called McIlroy’s decision ‘mind boggling’, especially with The Players this week and The Masters coming up.
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Now adding his say on matters, Smylie Kaufman has suggested McIlroy has some decisions to make after witnessing him on the range in Florida.
Smylie Kaufman shares Rory McIlroy concerns ahead of The Players
Kaufman was speaking on the latest episode of his podcast about the changes McIlroy made and got into plenty of detail on those changes, including some questions coming out of the switch.
“Rory switched to a spinnier golf ball, and one of the big issues that Rory had last year was that he really struggled with the three-quarter shots, so bringing the flight down, bringing the spin down, and hitting these controlled iron shots,” Kaufman highlighted.
“And I think that was part golf swing and part ability to trust the shot. And he’s always been a guy who’s better at hitting a driver than he is hitting a knockdown wedge. When you swing that up on it and swing that in to out, that’s not conducive necessarily for a three-quarter wedge shot. They’re opposite ends of the spectrum.
“So what Rory tried to do this week, and I’m not saying that this is wrong, but I think why we saw him switch on Sunday back to his original setup is because it is so different from what he had. And I think this is actually a pretty good discussion that we can get into: what’s more important for Rory? “
Kaufman then got into the specifics of McIlroy’s game and highlighted how after watching him on the range, there’s questions over whether he even needs certain woods in his bag.
“So we’re so typical to see Rory in that off of the tee, tee to green, that’s his strength, Rory’s ability to get it on the green faster than everybody else, and further. So he got the new driver that talking about, he goes to a three wood that flies 300 yards, has a five wood that flies 280, and then he has a three iron that he had in the bag that would fly 260 yards. And I was watching him hit these three irons and the fairway metals too on the range on Tuesday and Wednesday, dude he hit 160 ball speed with a three iron. Just unfathomable how hard he was hitting these clubs.
“And so he’s got all these perfect gaps, and you’re wondering to yourself, does he really need a three wood and a five wood? I would understand why he’d need a three iron. You would have 15 clubs in this scenario, so what does he have to do, he has to take a wedge out of his setup. So he goes from a 46 degree wedge, so now he has to weaken that tremendously to 48, and now has a three wedge system where he goes 48 then he goes 54 and then 60. I think that’s a huge, huge adjustment. When you look down at a 54 degree versus what he was accustomed to having which is a 52, probably actually more like a 51, and a 56 degree, the difference in what that looks like to your eye visually, it’s tremendous, especially for pitching.
“A lot of people don’t think about that. He probably pitches a lot with his 60, but long bunker shots, shots he wants to play low, all of those are going to come out in different windows and that’s a huge adjustment period. So was it a surprise to see him switch back on Sunday to something he was familiar with, because that is a huge change when we talk about what is almost a month away, which is the first major of the season.”
Why Rory McIlroy thinks The Players will be easier than Bay Hill
Rory McIlroy will be desperate to stop Scottie Scheffler making it three in a row at TPC Sawgrass but he knows he needs to play well to get the business done.
Thankfully, McIlroy believes Sawgrass will be easier than Bay Hill.
“I don’t know, it’s just they’re two completely different tests,” he explained. “You know, the rough isn’t quite as thick next week.
“It’s going to be quite a lot softer, so, yeah… they’re not super similar, they’re both in Florida, but that’s about it.”
Still, as McIlroy also says, conditions won’t be too much different and he’ll have to play far better than he did at the Arnold Palmer to have a chance of success.
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