Rory McIlroy’s Recent Formula for Success Evokes a Tiger Woods Specialty
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Rory McIlroy doesn’t want to compare himself to Tiger Woods, but his recent ability to win golf tournaments without his best stuff mirrors one of Woods’s greatest skills.
On Wednesday at the WM Phoenix Open, McIlroy was asked if he feels like the No. 1 player in the world. His answer was beautifully simple: “Yes.” McIlroy said his game is more complete than it has ever been, but that doesn’t necessarily equate to playing perfect golf all the time.
McIlroy still battles stretches where he’s struggling to unleash his complete "A" game, but it’s how he handles those moments that allows him to break away from the pack. The Northern Irishman’s win at last week’s Hero Dubai Desert Classic was a perfect example.
McIlroy said he struggled with a two-way miss throughout the tournament. In the third round of the event, his driving accuracy was a staggering 35.7%, compared to the field average of 50.6%. Yet McIlroy managed to fire off a 65—the low score of McIlroy’s four rounds and the lowest of the day at Emirates Golf Club.
When asked how rare it is for McIlroy to emerge victorious during a week where he isn’t playing his best, he answered, “Rarer than I’d like it to be.”
“I think I said afterwards, it’s one of the things that made Tiger stand out all those years is he was able to win golf tournaments when he wasn’t at his best. Look, I’m not comparing myself for one minute to Tiger Woods, but if I can get better at sort of piecing it together and not getting—not wanting to play perfect golf to win golf tournaments,” McIlroy said.
McIlroy is right: Woods dominated because he was able to rack up wins even in the face of adversity, whether that stemmed from a big mid-round mistake or an injury. At the 2008 U.S. Open—which Woods ultimately won in a 18-hole playoff against Rocco Mediate—he double-bogeyed the first hole three out of the four days.
Scrambling with what you have on any given day is what separates the greats from the pack in golf, and more often than not, that ability depends on the short game.
“I didn’t react to bad shots; I sort of had a two-way miss off the tee; there was a bunch of stuff going on,” McIlroy said of his win in Dubai. “But I was just able to put that behind me and really win with my short game and my putting and my ability just to manage my game.”
Winning with a less-than-perfect game is difficult at any golf tournament, but McIlroy explained why it actually might be easier at top events.
“I mean, it’s probably easier to do at bigger events because you know you don’t have to make a ton of birdies," he said. "Looking back, I shot 19 under par in Dubai. I’m like, how did I do that? How did I get to that score? But I think at the bigger events—the U.S. Open last year is a perfect example—I didn’t feel like I had my best, but I was able to sort of get it around and make par saves and not get too frustrated with it.”
If McIlroy’s game continues to track like it has been, he might be able to make that Woods comparison a more frequent thought exercise.