Sep 2, 2016: Last week, Rory McIlroy changed his putter. On Thursday, the eve of the Deutsche Bank Championship, he also discussed his new putting coach, Phil Kenyon. The goal is simple – solve McIlroy’s putting woes.
“I’m in constant touch with Phil,” McIlroy said of the Englishman, who also works with Henrik Stenson. “I feel like he’s obviously the way to go for me right now.
“We’ll see how it goes and work hard at it and hopefully I start to see little improvements each and every week.”
McIlroy had worked with Dave Stockton for several years. After a season in which McIlroy currently ranks 130th in strokes gained: putting – the PGA TOUR’s primary putting statistic – he felt it was time to seek a different approach.
That’s one of the reasons he changed his putter last week at The Barclays, opting for a Scotty Cameron prototype mallet that helps keep the face square at impact.
“It’s a work in progress,” said McIlroy, who finished T-31 at Bethpage Black. “I’m trying to work on a few things and trying to change a few things.
“Last week was a case of really concentrating too much on what I was trying to do with my technique rather than just trying to hole putts. So hopefully it can start to begin to feel a little more natural this week and moving forward. …
“As long as I feel like I can see improvements each and every week and feel like I’m on the right path, then I feel like that’s the right way to go.”
McIlroy said he will take the long-range view of things, and utilize his downtime in December to work on things. His goal, he said, is to make sure his putting woes are ironed out by next April.
“If I can be really comfortable with my putting going to Augusta next April, that’s my timeline,” McIlroy said. “So that’s a seven- or eight-month period where I can sort of try to get it right.”
By Mike McAllister, PGA TOUR
