Smylie Kaufman believes that there is one aspect of Rory McIlroy’s game which has got worse this year, as he discussed the problem the Northern Irishman may have at The Open Championship this week.
Rory McIlroy is going to be amongst the favourites heading to Royal Troon, with McIlroy surely even more determined than usual to end his wait for his fifth major title after what happened at the US Open last month.
The 35-year-old has never got closer to that fifth title than he did at Pinehurst, when he led by two shots at one stage on the back nine in North Carolina. Unfortunately, three bogeys in the final four holes presented Bryson DeChambeau with the chance to win.
Of course, much of the discussion after the US Open focused on the two short putts McIlroy missed on 16 and 18 on Sunday. But McIlroy was exceptional with the putter for so much of the week. Instead, the bigger issue in his game is perhaps elsewhere in the bag.
One big concern surrounding Rory McIlroy ahead of The Open
Speaking on The Smylie Show about McIlroy’s chances this week, Kaufman suggested that he has one real concern about his game.
“I get a little worried about maybe his iron game in crosswinds, I think that would be one of the biggest things where I would be like, ah man, his iron game, if you had to point at something this year that isn’t as good as last year, at times I felt like his iron game,” he said.
“At last year’s Open Championship, dude, he was striping it with his irons last year, just the putter went cold. So we’ll see if he’ll be able to hit those hold shots which I’m a little concerned about, because I’ve seen him this year kind of get caught between fades and draws and what he sees. And when you throw a bunch of wind, that can cause a little indecision as far as where your bottom is and what type of shots you want to play, because he’s felt more comfortable this year hitting higher shots and not as much with the lower shots.”
US Open nearly saw the perfect performance from McIlroy
What was so agonising about what happened at the US Open was that it appeared to be the moment when everything was finally coming together for McIlroy in a major championship.
Many will remember the 2022 Open at St Andrews when he did not make a single mistake in the final round, but his failure to hole anything of note allowed Cameron Smith to snatch the Claret Jug from his grasp.
He was making big putts at Pinehurst, and his driving has rarely been better. McIlroy appeared to have such control of his golf ball, and he did not let bad breaks – like the one on the fifth when his approach ran off the green and into a bunker some way from the putting surface – get to him.
What happened in those final four holes was simply baffling, so McIlroy will need to find a way to focus on what he did in the first 68 holes of the tournament as he looks to bounce back at Troon.
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