Tiger Woods: I’m back.
Rory McIlroy: Hold my beer.
Last week, at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, we were privileged, once again, to watch Rory McIlroy bring a golf course to its knees. Booming 400-yard drives, firing approaches straight at flags and pouring putts into the middle of the hole, the four-time major winner announced his return to the winners’ enclosure in emphatic fashion, carding a sparkling 64 to win at Bay Hill by three strokes.
While much of the pre-tournament hullabaloo had focused on how Tiger Woods looked poised to win after falling agonisingly short a week earlier at the Valspar Championship, McIlroy flew under the radar and blew everyone away.
He looked a man reborn. Chest out, strutting up and down the course, McIlroy’s confidence was soaring once again. 2017 was an immensely difficult one for the Northern Irishman but 2018 already feels like it could be something big.
And a lot of that is down to his improved putting. McIlroy’s staggering length of the tee and towering iron shots places a real premium on being able to hole putts. Last year, the hole seemed to shrink when he lined up on the greens but, at Bay Hill, he recaptured his rhythm and feel. With that in the bag, nobody was going to stop him.
The 28-year-old credited former PGA Tour pro Brad Faxon for inspiring his magic with the flatstick, but also admitted that Wayne Rooney played a small but pivotal role, too, even if the former Manchester United striker knew nothing about it.
“We were talking about different sports and he (Faxon) was talking about a free-throw shooter in basketball,” McIlroy said.
“We were talking about triggers, about how do you start your putting stroke. Everyone has different ways and I said Wayne Rooney before he takes a free-kick or a penalty he taps his toe on the ground before he actually starts his run-up. I noticed it when I shot a Nike commercial with him a few years ago.”
He timed that very well https://t.co/UHmdC1fIl7
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) March 21, 2018
With the Masters just two weeks away, McIlroy says he is delighted where his game is at as he seeks to complete the career Grand Slam by adding the Green Jacket to previous wins at the US Open, The Open Championship and the PGA Championship.
“I’m very happy to have my game in this shape going into the first major of the year of course,” the world number seven said. “Even if I hadn’t have won last week, just to see the signs that my game was in good shape would have been good enough for me knowing that going into Augusta I was ready to play well.
“I’ve had three goes at winning the grand slam and I’d had maybe 12 or 13 majors before I won my first one so you could say the first one was maybe a little bit harder, but I only get one opportunity a year at Augusta.
“The last three years I’ve played well, not well enough, and hopefully I put the last piece of the puzzle in there this year and get it done.
“I’m optimistic that I can go ahead and do this more often. I’ve crossed that line that I needed to. I hadn’t won in the past 18 months and it was a real validation.
“I’m optimistic about not just the next few weeks but the whole season now. It’s great to get a win early and I’ve got all that great stuff to fall back on from how I handled everything on Sunday.”
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