Rory McIlroy - 4 Time Major Winner

Seve OB

Playing British Masters next week

AnneFrank

davo10 wrote: »

Jack Nicklaus said it, missing a green from a hundred yards is like missing your mouth with a fork. Earlier in this thread I got roasted for posting about a newspaper article that said at times he plays like a journey man, I wonder how that holds up now.

haha great quote from jack, some people just love Mcilroy and cant see all his obvious flaws, the main one being he just doesn't care as much as other players about winning and leaving a legacy.It's all about money for him.The love of the game is gone and has been for years

brady23

AnneFrank wrote: »

haha great quote from jack, some people just love Mcilroy and cant see all his obvious flaws, the main one being he just doesn't care as much as other players about winning and leaving a legacy.It's all about money for him.The love of the game is gone and has been for years

I have to laugh when I read or hear statements such as this.
How do you possibly know that his "love for the game" is gone or his interest is monetary and not winning at golf.
Yes he's not winning the way he was but there is an abundance of individual or combined reasons which could cause his "slump". Of course his slump stills leaves him as a top 10 player.
He has the ability to be one of the greats and should be held to higher standards than most but the ambiguity that surrounds statements like "love of the game" etc is just a silly criticism with no foundation.

davo10

brady23 wrote: »

I have to laugh when I read or hear statements such as this.
How do you possibly know that his "love for the game" is gone or his interest is monetary and not winning at golf.
.

I suspect the assumption that money matters more comes from his response a couple of months ago to a few barbs thrown by Steve Elkington, McIllroy measured his success by quoting not the tournaments he had won, but the size of his fortune. I don't think I ever heard another player do that.

“More like 200mil... not bad for a ‘bored’ 28 year old... plenty more where that came from,”

Also, for a great player supposedly at his peak, he hasn't won a major since 2014 and has hardly looked like really competing for one for quite a while despite a couple of strong finishes.

ligerdub

davo10 wrote: »

I suspect the assumption that money matters more comes from his response a couple of months ago to a few barbs thrown by Steve Elkington, McIllroy measured his success by quoting not the tournaments he had won, but the size of his fortune. I don't think I ever heard another player do that.

“More like 200mil... not bad for a ‘bored’ 28 year old... plenty more where that came from,”

Also, for a great player supposedly at his peak, he hasn't won a major since 2014 and has hardly looked like really competing for one for quite a while despite a couple of strong finishes.

Phil Mickelson didn't win a major until he was 33.

Whiplash85

ligerdub wrote: »

Phil Mickelson didn't win a major until he was 33.

Mickelson is a genius. Mcilroy is not. he's greatest asset is his power which will diminish once he hits his 30's and loses flexibility and rotation. he doesn't have the mercurial wedge play, scrambling skills or putting to compensate.

brady23

davo10 wrote: »

I suspect the assumption that money matters more comes from his response a couple of months ago to a few barbs thrown by Steve Elkington, McIllroy measured his success by quoting not the tournaments he had won, but the size of his fortune. I don't think I ever heard another player do that.

“More like 200mil... not bad for a ‘bored’ 28 year old... plenty more where that came from,”

Also, for a great player supposedly at his peak, he hasn't won a major since 2014 and has hardly looked like really competing for one for quite a while despite a couple of strong finishes.

I suppose one comment and a dip in form constitutes an opinion centered on a disregard for competing and an affinity for only money.

I'm no McIlroy fanboy by any means but he gets some silly criticism on this thread. Perhaps the dip in form is from a variety of reasons in his control or perhaps from those outside like a change of equipment or improvement of other players for example.

I don't know the reason but the reasons given especially regarding his love of the game and interest in financial rewards vs winning I think is silly.
I don't believe given the marketability of a variety of guys such as DJ, Speith, Day, Fowler, DeChambeau that if McIlroys form dipped that much he would still retain his sponsors. He's aware he's not Tiger, he needs to win to make money. The more wins the more money.

The love of the game stuff is right up there with the critics of his gym work etc it just has no real foundation in fact.

brady23

Whiplash85 wrote: »

Mickelson is a genius. Mcilroy is not. he's greatest asset is his power which will diminish once he hits his 30's and loses flexibility and rotation. he doesn't have the mercurial wedge play, scrambling skills or putting to compensate.

So Phil was better than Rory at the same age when Rory won his majors?

ligerdub

Whiplash85 wrote: »

Mickelson is a genius. Mcilroy is not. he's greatest asset is his power which will diminish once he hits his 30's and loses flexibility and rotation. he doesn't have the mercurial wedge play, scrambling skills or putting to compensate.

I'm just saying give the guy a chance. We are saying he is at his peak, but that's not necessarily the case.

Look at the world's top 25 players. Only about 3 of those guys are players I would put in the punching above their weight category. They are all seriously good players.

The current top 10 is as good as I can recall ever seeing it. The generation that has come through in the last few years is unreal....Spieth, Thomas, Johnson, Rahm, Hideki.......all of these guys are phenomenal talents.

Dustin Johnson is a freak of golf, the best player in the world. He has only won one major title. They are bloody hard to win. Rory hasn't won one in 3 full years, yeah it's not great, but it's hardly a disaster.

Look at the world's top 15 and their majors:

Dustin Johnson (1)
Jordan Spieth (3)
Hideki Matsuyama (0)
Justin Thomas (1)
Jon Rahm (0)*
Jason Day (1)
Rickie Fowler (0)
Rory McIlroy (4)
Henrik Stenson (1)
Sergio Garcia (1)
Brooks Koepka (1)
Alex Noren (0)
Matt Kuchar (0)
Justin Rose (1)
Marc Leishman (0)
Paul Casey (0)
Tommy Fleetwood (0)
Francesco Molinari (0)
Rafael Cabrera Bello (0)
Patrick Reed (0)

*Career too short to be critical.

Be a bit more critical, look at the major winners since Rory last won:

 Sergio García
 Brooks Koepka
 Jordan Spieth
 Justin Thomas
 Danny Willett
 Dustin Johnson
 Henrik Stenson
 Jimmy Walker
 Zach Johnson
 Jason Day

All of these guys have won one major in that time.....except for Spieth (3). How many of these guys won by narrow margins or with a little rub of the green, almost all of them? The margins are tiny. Actually 3 of them only just held off Spieth too.

Look at the list of the below golfers. You're looking at a career span of about 85 years at the top of the game if you add them all up. They've won 5 majors between them......only one more than Rory, who has been around for 10 years.

Dustin Johnson (1)
Hideki Matsuyama (0)
Jason Day (1)
Rickie Fowler (0)
Henrik Stenson (1)
Sergio Garcia (1)
Matt Kuchar (0)
Justin Rose (1)
Patrick Reed (0)

Rory McIlroy (4)

backspin.

Whiplash85 wrote: »

Mickelson is a genius. Mcilroy is not. he's greatest asset is his power which will diminish once he hits his 30's and loses flexibility and rotation. he doesn't have the mercurial wedge play, scrambling skills or putting to compensate.

Power wasn't really Rory's thing when he won his first major. If anything its the focus on power driving in the last 2 or 3 years that has set his game back imo.

Islander13

http://nolayingup.com/2017/09/19/nlu-podcast-episode-99-rory-mcilroy-part-ii/

Strongly recommend the attached podcast, 2 parts, talks about the injury and relationship with JP that led to the split (last 5 mins of the second pod). Comes across extremely well

eoghan104

Islander13 wrote: »

http://nolayingup.com/2017/09/19/nlu-podcast-episode-99-rory-mcilroy-part-ii/

Strongly recommend the attached podcast, 2 parts, talks about the injury and relationship with JP that led to the split (last 5 mins of the second pod). Comes across extremely well

How did I not know about this podcast!!! Thanks a lot

Russman

Love that part where he say if he ends up with half a dozen majors less than Tiger but with a proper quality of life then its "happy days".

Maybe he's the one who actually has it figured out.........

brady23

Russman wrote: »

Love that part where he say if he ends up with half a dozen majors less than Tiger but with a proper quality of life then its "happy days".

Maybe he's the one who actually has it figured out.........

That could be true. It seemed like quite a candid interview. I thought he came across really well.

backspin.

ligerdub wrote: »

I'm just saying give the guy a chance. We are saying he is at his peak, but that's not necessarily the case.

Look at the world's top 25 players. Only about 3 of those guys are players I would put in the punching above their weight category. They are all seriously good players.

The current top 10 is as good as I can recall ever seeing it. The generation that has come through in the last few years is unreal....Spieth, Thomas, Johnson, Rahm, Hideki.......all of these guys are phenomenal talents.

Dustin Johnson is a freak of golf, the best player in the world. He has only won one major title. They are bloody hard to win. Rory hasn't won one in 3 full years, yeah it's not great, but it's hardly a disaster.

Look at the world's top 15 and their majors:

Dustin Johnson (1)
Jordan Spieth (3)
Hideki Matsuyama (0)
Justin Thomas (1)
Jon Rahm (0)*
Jason Day (1)
Rickie Fowler (0)
Rory McIlroy (4)
Henrik Stenson (1)
Sergio Garcia (1)
Brooks Koepka (1)
Alex Noren (0)
Matt Kuchar (0)
Justin Rose (1)
Marc Leishman (0)
Paul Casey (0)
Tommy Fleetwood (0)
Francesco Molinari (0)
Rafael Cabrera Bello (0)
Patrick Reed (0)

*Career too short to be critical.

Be a bit more critical, look at the major winners since Rory last won:

 Sergio García
 Brooks Koepka
 Jordan Spieth
 Justin Thomas
 Danny Willett
 Dustin Johnson
 Henrik Stenson
 Jimmy Walker
 Zach Johnson
 Jason Day

All of these guys have won one major in that time.....except for Spieth (3). How many of these guys won by narrow margins or with a little rub of the green, almost all of them? The margins are tiny. Actually 3 of them only just held off Spieth too.

Look at the list of the below golfers. You're looking at a career span of about 85 years at the top of the game if you add them all up. They've won 5 majors between them......only one more than Rory, who has been around for 10 years.

Dustin Johnson (1)
Hideki Matsuyama (0)
Jason Day (1)
Rickie Fowler (0)
Henrik Stenson (1)
Sergio Garcia (1)
Matt Kuchar (0)
Justin Rose (1)
Patrick Reed (0)

Rory McIlroy (4)

Great post, i am very surprised Jason Day only has one. Same with Rose. I thought they had a couple each.

mickmackey1

ligerdub wrote: »

zzzzzzz....

Statistics can be twisted anyway you want, the fact is McIlroy's career is currently 33% better than Padraig Harrington's. He has completely flopped this season and no amount of fawning by his juvenile fanboys on here will change that.

ligerdub

mickmackey1 wrote: »

Statistics can be twisted anyway you want, the fact is McIlroy's career is currently 33% better than Padraig Harrington's. He has completely flopped this season and no amount of fawning by his juvenile fanboys on here will change that.

They are facts. I'm at least trying to back up a point with an argument rather than churlish nonsense when I've nothing valuable to add.....of which I will only do the odd time.

My main point is don't judge a golfer by his form but by his talent. Almost every single player has periods of poor play, well below their own standards.

Johnny_Fontane

mickmackey1 wrote: »

Statistics can be twisted anyway you want, the fact is McIlroy's career is currently 33% better than Padraig Harrington's. He has completely flopped this season and no amount of fawning by his juvenile fanboys on here will change that.

Put it this way, Harrington had only one professional win by the time he was 28. Mcilroy has 22 wins and 4 majors.

Thats the real facts.

He's had a really poor season of course, but they are in different stratospheres.

ligerdub

backspin. wrote: »

Great post, i am very surprised Jason Day only has one. Same with Rose. I thought they had a couple each.

Rose won the Olympics too. He's had a fair few swipes at titles, but only got the 1 major win, same with Day, both have good records at the Masters.

brady23

mickmackey1 wrote: »

Statistics can be twisted anyway you want, the fact is McIlroy's career is currently 33% better than Padraig Harrington's. He has completely flopped this season and no amount of fawning by his juvenile fanboys on here will change that.

I always get a good laugh out of the fanboy stuff whenever someone praises or defends an athlete.

I don't think anyone is fawning over McIlroy or is disputing he's fallen well short of his own expectations and the expectations of most golf fans.

The difference in opinion is more whether he has underachieved at this point in his career given his immense potential and whether he will regain his form and win more majors.

Great statistical comparison between McIlroy and Harrington too.

AGC

Listened to the podcasts on No Laying Up with McIlroy, very good I thought, he sums it up himself quite well, injury didn't help, change of equipment didn't help, wedge play not good enough, looking forward to a decent break fro the game.

The stat from the European Tour the other day where it shows how he has finished top 10 in over 50% of his events, unbelievable consistency.

AnneFrank

Johnny_Fontane wrote: »

Put it this way, Harrington had only one professional win by the time he was 28. Mcilroy has 22 wins and 4 majors.

Thats the real facts.

He's had a really poor season of course, but they are in different stratospheres.

This isn't really a fair comparison, Harrington finished his accountancy degree first and became a pro much older than Rory, they are two very different players, a maverick and a worker. They'd make some team in their prime

ligerdub

AnneFrank wrote: »

This isn't really a fair comparison, Harrington finished his accountancy degree first and became a pro much older than Rory, they are two very different players, a maverick and a worker. They'd make some team in their prime

Come on AF, I'd say McIlroy worked his bollox off to be world number 1 at the age of 23. He'd won the US Open by the age most people finish college.

There's a lot of blind spots and misconceptions about certain players and how hard they work. Guys like Singh and Harrington are obviously hard workers and stick out a mile, but we're not seeing these pro's when they were forming their abilities. It's not like cramming for an exam, it's built off a mastery built up over years and years.

I remember hearing Jason Day saying he dedicated himself to getting at least 30 hours of practice (that's a conservative recollection, it might have been a lot higher) a week......every week when he was honing his craft. People like Day, Kuchar give off a laid-back style but you can guarantee they put the hours in. Then there are the prodigies, seemingly gifts from the Gods of golf, "born to play the game", like Woods, McIlroy, Spieth, I guarantee they put more hours in than the rest though. There are absolutely no players at the top of the world rankings who haven't and do not work their arse off.

A good historical example of this is the comparison of Ben Hogan and Sam Snead. Everything marveled at Hogan's dedication to hitting golf balls....finding his secret in the dirt, compared to their envy to Snead's "natural, effortless" flow, but it was an entirely unfair comparison on Snead.

https://www.golfdigest.com/story/myshot_gd0204

"People always said I had a natural swing. They thought I wasn't a hard worker. But when I was young, I'd play and practice all day, then practice more at night by my car's headlights. My hands bled. Nobody worked harder at golf than I did."

McIlroy is an incredibly dedicated individual, every decision he makes he does to improve his career, his playing career.

brady23

ligerdub wrote: »

McIlroy is an incredibly dedicated individual, every decision he makes he does to improve his career, his playing career.

I agree he is a very dedicated individual and winning I believe is his number 1 goal.
That said I don't believe that every decision he has made in his career thus far has been focused on improving his playing career.

For example the switch to Nike was not a decision taken to improve his playing career. It wasn't as if Nike came along with superior tech to Titliest or RZN ball was superior to a Pro V.

I think most decisions are golfing decisions but not all

ligerdub

brady23 wrote: »

I agree he is a very dedicated individual and winning I believe is his number 1 goal.
That said I don't believe that every decision he has made in his career thus far has been focused on improving his playing career.

For example the switch to Nike was not a decision taken to improve his playing career. It wasn't as if Nike came along with superior tech to Titliest or RZN ball was superior to a Pro V.

I think most decisions are golfing decisions but not all

Yep, fair enough point there.

AnneFrank

what about the weeks off he takes before majors,
that's hardly for the good of his golf,
and the way he throws in the towel so easy if he has a couple of bogeys,
this is not the golf of a grinder, of a real dedicated guy,
I'm not saying he doesn't work or practice hard, but he's a maverick and will never be like Harrington
or a stephen hendry of the snooker world, he's more like Ronnie Osullivan.
It is who he is, it's not a crime

brady23

AnneFrank wrote: »

what about the weeks off he takes before majors,
that's hardly for the good of his golf,
and the way he throws in the towel so easy if he has a couple of bogeys,
this is not the golf of a grinder, of a real dedicated guy,
I'm not saying he doesn't work or practice hard, but he's a maverick and will never be like Harrington
or a stephen hendry of the snooker world, he's more like Ronnie Osullivan.
It is who he is, it's not a crime

How do you know its not good for his golf?

There's no optimal blueprint for success in sport. There are athletes who need to put in extra hours. There are some athletes who perform at a higher level for a shorter period of time.
Practicing beyond that point may have a negative effect on their performance.
McIlroy says he likes the range. Someone else may like the course.

The point is McIlroy isnt Harrington but you don't know whether the way in which McIlroy practices and the time he takes off is optimal for him.
Youre assuming more practice equals more success. At that level that is not necessarily the case.
You're simplifying something that is far more complex than work harder + longer = more wins

That may work for the likes of you and I who(I assume) aren't pro level athletes but I would imagine McIlroy has the best physios, trainers, coaches and sports psychologists around him to help optimize performance

AnneFrank

brady23 wrote: »

How do you know its not good for his golf?

His results in majors over the last few years since he started taking 2 3 or even 4 weeks off before a major, it's obvious really unless you're blinded by love

brady23

AnneFrank wrote: »

brady23 wrote: »

How do you know its not good for his golf?

His results in majors over the last few years since he started taking 2 3 or even 4 weeks off before a major, it's obvious really unless you're blinded by love

Nothing like the Law of Small Numbers to reaffirm an already flawed argument

Russman

AnneFrank wrote: »

brady23 wrote: »

How do you know its not good for his golf?

His results in majors over the last few years since he started taking 2 3 or even 4 weeks off before a major, it's obvious really unless you're blinded by love

Not to go too off topic but IIRC Tiger rarely played the week before a major and he did ok.
I don't think there's a definite cause and effect relationship between playing the week before or not TBH. Personally I think it makes no difference either way. What works for one guy won't work for another.

I remember after the Medinah Ryder Cup when Rory was missing on the Sunday, some people were wondering why the team didn't travel together etc etc and there was a newspaper article explaining that each player travelled separately to the course because, apart from differing tee times, each one had a different pre round routine. Some guys need an hour and a half to get ready, some only wanted 30 mins.

There's absolutely a place for the, for want of a better phase, "plodders" who need to practice their ar$e$ off to be any good, but also I think we need to accept that some players are different and don't necessarily need to dig it out of the ground. A Harrington type and a Sergio type if you will :D!!