Most followers of professional golf would agree: Rory McIlroy has one of the best swings in the game.
It’s powerful, smooth and impactful, leading to him being one of the world’s best players for more than a decade now. However, to him, he hasn’t liked the shape of his swing, “for a while, especially the backswing.”
So what did he do? Locked himself inside.
“I sort of committed after the Dunhill that I wasn’t going to watch my ball flight for three weeks,” McIlroy said. “So locked myself indoors in like a swing studio for three weeks and just hit balls into a blank screen or net and just focused on my swing and focused on the movement of my swing and focused on movement of my body patterns. Had a live feed on a TV in front of me of where the club was, and just sort of trying to get the reps in of making the motion that I want to make.
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“Then over the past ten days now, sort of from last Monday, started to see the ball flight and get a bit more comfortable with what the ball was doing in the air. Still trying to focus on the move that I want to make. But I think those three weeks were important. I had not had time to sort of do that over the past 18 months. So I thought it was important to get in there and do that.”
McIlroy continued, saying if he were blasting ball after ball on the driving range, he would be enamored with the flight and not his mechanics.
The revamped backswing, which he will continue to work on ahead of the 2025 season, will be put on display the next two weeks in the final events of the DP World Tour’s season. This week, it’s the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship at Yas Links, where a top-two finish can secure McIlroy the top spot in the Rolex Series, the season-long points race that McIlroy has won five times previously.
Only two golfers (Colin Montgomerie with eight, Seve Ballesteros with six) have won more.
Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland plays a shot on the 18th hole during day four of the BMW PGA Championship 2024 at Wentworth Club on September 22, 2024 in Virginia Water, England. (Photo by Luke Walker/Getty Images)
“I pride myself — I’m a European player. I would like to go down as the most successful European of all time,” McIlroy said. “Obviously Race to Dubai wins would count to that but also major championships and hopefully I’ve got a few more Ryder Cups ahead of me as well. So that’s something that I would like to, I think is a goal that’s quite attainable over the next ten years.”
This week will mark McIlroy’s 26th start in 2024, and after next week, he will have played a heavy schedule he looks forward to rejuvenating from over the holidays.
But in the meantime, this week is about seeing how his swing changes have helped. And if he was playing like the world No. 3 before the time locked inside, perhaps that is what it will take to finally get back in victory lane.
“It’s nice to come here with motivation of trying to achieve something and give — put all my efforts into the next two weeks,” he said.