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Rory McIlroy 'experimenting' with new speed
Last we saw 18-time PGA TOUR winner Rory McIlroy, more than three weeks ago, he was shooting a dispiriting final-round 75 to finish T8 at the U.S. Open in New York. Bryson DeChambeau, meanwhile, was bludgeoning Winged Foot into submission, his Ruthian approach leading to a six-shot victory over Matthew Wolff. McIlroy, like countless others, could scarcely believe it. “It's kind of hard to really wrap my head around it,” he said. Well, he’s had time, and he’s hinting at bringing some extra firepower to THE CJ CUP @ SHADOW CREEK this week. With some speed work in the gym and a lighter shaft in his driver, he posted on Instagram that he’s getting up around 190 mph ball speed and 340 yards of carry. Has he been inspired by DeChambeau? Well, yes, but only to a point. “Yeah, for the last couple weeks I was working on some stuff,” McIlroy said from Las Vegas, where eight of the top 10 and 70 of the top 125 from the final 2020 FedExCup standings will take on Shadow Creek. “I think as a golfer, we're so ingrained to trying to hit the ball where you're looking, and I think with – I think that's one of the great things that Bryson's done. “Bryson, when he speed-trains, he just hits the ball into a net, so he doesn't really know where it's going,” McIlroy continued. “He's just trying to move as fast as he can … and sort of making the target irrelevant for the time being and then you can sort of try to bring it in from there. From what I've done and what I've been trying – you know, sort of experimenting with the last couple weeks – it's the fastest I've ever moved the club, the fastest my body has ever moved.” Distance, he added, has always been an advantage, whether it was the era of Jack Nicklaus; the heyday of Tiger Woods; or today. For most of his career, McIlroy has been at or near the top of the Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee stat. Now he’s flirting with making one of his strengths even more of an asset. Still, he added, just because he has been experimenting with extra speed, that doesn’t mean he’ll always use it. “At least I know that if I need to do it, I can do it,” he said. Justin Rose admitted he’s still just trying to hit the ball straight again, let alone far, but said he’s been taking note as McIlroy and others try to catch up to the TOUR’s new distance leader. “I think I've seen the trickledown effect of what Bryson's been doing,” Rose said, “and you're seeing guys like Rory and even Justin Thomas – I'm hearing kind of rumors out on the range, everyone's trying to crank it up a little bit, get a few more miles an hour.” If this all feels a bit jarring, it might be because it seems like just yesterday that McIlroy, 31, was the pacesetter. A four-time major winner, he’s young enough to still be in his prime, or just entering it. He won THE PLAYERS Championship and his second FedExCup title just last year, but hasn’t found his A game since the TOUR returned in June. His last win was the World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions last November. Now along comes DeChambeau, whose relentless innovation still invites criticism even as it succeeds. McIlroy took time out to clarify that he is not one of those critics. “I called what Bryson did brilliant, and I think my comments maybe got taken out of context,” he said. “I said he's taking advantage of everything we have in the game right now. I didn't mean that in a bad way. I meant he has went to the nth degree of everything we have available to us: science, TrackMan, biomechanics, everything, all the knowledge that we have nowadays that golfers 20 years ago didn't have access to because there just wasn't enough knowledge out there.” DeChambeau, McIlroy added, has to his credit been willing to go deeper down that rabbit hole than anyone else. “He's worked his ass off to do that and it's paying off hugely,” McIlroy said. How much will he, Thomas, Rose and others tear apart their own games in search of similar quantum leaps? Time will tell, but clearly the process has begun. “I think it's the way the game's going,” McIlroy said. “I got sent a really good article last weekend, it was in the Wall Street Journal, just about every single sport becoming faster, longer, stronger, and I don't think golf's any different. I'm just trying to keep up with the way it's going.”
Sei Young Kim What’s In The Bag?
We look inside the bag of 2020 KPMG Women's PGA Championship winner Sei Young Kim. We look inside the bag of 2020 KPMG Women's PGA Championship winner Sei Young Kim. This article Sei Young Kim What’s In The Bag? appeared first on Golf Monthly.
Martin Laird’s winning WITB: 2020 Shriners Open
Driver: Ping G410 LST (9 degrees) Shaft: Project X HZURDUS Smoke Black 70G 6.5 3-wood: Titleist TS3 (15 degrees; A1 SureFit) Shaft: Mitsubishi Diamana BF 70 TX 5-wood: TaylorMade R15 (19 degrees; upright setting) Shaft: Mitsubishi Diamana S+ 80 TX Irons: Srixon Z785 (4-PW) Shafts: Project X 6.5 Wedges: Cleveland RTX 3 “Raw” (52-10 II Dot), Cleveland RTX […]
Bryson DeChambeau turns transformation doubters into believers
LAS VEGAS – You got to hand it to Bryson DeChambeau. He put his money where his mouth is. One year ago, DeChambeau looked a small throng of journalists in the eye as he was getting set to leave the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open and vowed he would transform his body to a level not seen before. RELATED: Inside the big-hittinng group of DeChambeau, Champ & Wolff “I’m going to come back next year and look like a different person. You're going to see some pretty big changes in my body, which is going to be a good thing. Going to be hitting it a lot further,” DeChambeau said after finishing T4 in his title defense at TPC Summerlin. At the time the comments brought with it plenty of eyerolls. A sense of – here goes crazy Bryson again – was most certainly permeating through some of the golf world. But the doubters are – at least right now – eating their words. Because “hitting it a lot further” is an understatement. And he’s combined raw power with some pretty impressive accuracy – at least enough to win the Rocket Mortgage Challenge by three and the U.S. Open by six. At the end of the 2018-19 season DeChambeau boasted a Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee mark of +0.421 and a driving distance average of 302.5 yards. A year later he put up a season where his SG: Off-the-Tee led the TOUR at +1.039 and led driving distance at 322.1 yards. Exactly one year to the day from his comments, on Tuesday evening at the TPC Summerlin range, DeChambeau had to move 40 yards behind his playing competitors on the range. He is now some 40 pounds heavier and noticeably bulked up. And he was hitting the ball into a residential area where thankfully some TOUR equipment trucks were parked to take the brunt instead of some houses. “I watched Happy Gilmore a little while ago and just re-inspired me to try and hit it as far as possible,” he quipped Wednesday. Well even after moving back on the range DeChambeau was threatening those in the trucks. It immediately evoked thoughts of Adam Sandler’s character hitting balls from his grandmothers lawn into the distance and smashing into a house some 400 yards away. When the movers don’t believe what they saw he replicates it, knocking a person out of the second story window he just broke. DeChambeau thankfully wasn’t injuring any innocent bystanders. But he was intimidating his fellow competitors who could see and hear the massive drives whistling over their heads. He’s already won at this course but now he will attack it from all new places. He says he can potentially go after four of the par 4’s off the tee and of course easily reach all of the par 5s in two. “There will be holes where I'm going to try and drive them, get it up as close to the green as possible,” he confirmed right before heading out for his Pro-am on Wednesday. “It's just fun having a 7-iron go 220. That's unique. And 4-iron, 265. There will be holes where I had to hit 3-wood and now I'm hitting 4-iron off the tees. “At the same point in time it's about putting, chipping, wedging. You still got to do everything else really well. So if I play well, ball strike it well, and putt well, I think I'll have a good chance again. Love this golf course.” DeChambeau was already a multiple time winner on the TOUR and a former U.S. Amateur champion. He didn’t need to make change, certainly not drastic change, if he didn’t want to. But his personality demands he chase perfection even though cerebrally he knows it’s unattainable. Getting closer to it though is not. Prior to the transformation he hadn’t contended well at majors. Now at just 27, he is a seven-time TOUR winner with a U.S. Open trophy in his house. The PGA Championship in August was his first top 10 in a major (T4) and his performance at Winged Foot last month to win by six was potentially a game-changer for the sport in general. It was there after his win he flouted the next move – using a 48-inch driver to bring even more distance into play. He immediately set to work on testing and while he is not ready to unveil it in his first event since the U.S. Open triumph, it is likely to come out at the Masters in November. “I won't unveil that until Augusta,” he confirmed. “(But) I'm looking forward to trying to put in a 48-inch driver and see what that can do for the golf course and what opportunities it will present for me. “It's going well. I think there is a lot of, I don't know, I guess you could say advantages to having a 48-inch driver and being able to put it in play and keep it in play. So working on that. Still need to get some things worked out, but so far it's been pretty amazing.” Indeed the entire year long transformation has been amazing. And with DeChambeau you can count on the fact there will always be more to come.
John Daly made the most John Daly hole-in-one ever
Federal Club golf professional Josh Price just happened to have video rolling when John Daly — sans hat and barefoot — took a swing on the par-3 11th hole. The post John Daly made the most John Daly hole-in-one ever appeared first on Golf.
Sergio Garcia on his first PGA Tour victory since 2017
DOUG MILNE: We’d like to welcome Sergio Garcia, winner of the 2020 Sanderson Farms Championship. Congratulations on a very convincing victory, your 11th on the PGA TOUR and first since the 2017 Masters. Obviously last shot coming into 18, third shot coming into 18, second shot coming into 18, just a few highlights of the …
Michael Jordan taunts PGA Tour player during friendly rounds: ‘That’s why you’re not playing the major this week’
Dominic Bozzelli made the cut at the Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship last weekend, marking the first time he's made a PGA (...)
Tommy Fleetwood: “I’m feeling more optimistic”
Q.Tommy, welcome to a freezing room. Talk about your recent form, great finish in Portugal but disappointing week at Winged Foot? TOMMY FLEETWOOD: Yeah, to be honest, you know, I think since being back out playing again from late summer when I first came back out and after that COVID lockdown, I think I haven’t …
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What does Bryson DeChambeau think of accusations that he's 'breaking golf'?
Bryson DeChambeau has something up his sleeve for Augusta National, but he knows his optimal strategy will rub some golf viewers the wrong way. The post What does Bryson DeChambeau think of accusations that he’s ‘breaking golf’? appeared first on Golf.
What does Bryson DeChambeau think when people say he's 'breaking golf'?
Bryson DeChambeau has his sights set on a brand-new strategy for tackling Augusta National — and has some thoughts for people who say he's "breaking golf," all on this week's Drop Zone, presented by Cobra Puma Golf. The post What does Bryson DeChambeau think when people say he’s ‘breaking golf’? appeared first on Golf.
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