The Telegraph
Rory McIlroy: I’ve ruined my swing trying to copy Bryson DeChambeau
Rory McIlroy has admitted messing up his swing in an attempt to emulate Bryson DeChambeau. In a stunningly honest self-critique, the Northern Irishman pointed the finger squarely at his own desire for speed and power to explain the loss of form that saw him miss the cut at The Players Championship and leave him with a race against time to recover his renowned rhythm for next month’s Masters. Professional golfers simply do not do this. In the wake of an ignominious display – which McIlroy’s certainly was at Sawgrass, as the defending champion fell short of the weekend by 10 shots – they will either refuse to talk or grunt platitudes. But McIlroy stepped off the Stadium course after a second-round 75 to go with his opening 79 and let loose – on himself. How Rory McIlroy can recover from his dreaded two-way miss in time for the Masters “Where it all stems from is probably like October last year, doing a little bit of speed training, started getting sucked into that stuff,” he said. “Swing got flat, long, and too rotational. Obviously I added some speed and am hitting the ball longer, but what that did to my swing as a whole probably wasn’t a good thing. So I’m sort of fighting to get back out of that. That’s what I’m frustrated with. “Why did I do it? I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t anything to do with what Bryson did at the US Open. I think a lot of people saw that and were like, whoa, if this is the way they’re going to set golf courses up in the future, it helps. It really helps. “The one thing that people don’t appreciate is how good Bryson is out of the rough. Not only because of how upright he is but because his short irons are longer than standard, so he can get a little more speed through the rough than us other guys. And I thought being able to get some more speed is a good thing, and maybe just to the detriment a little bit of my swing, I got there. But I just need to maybe rein it back in a little bit.”