McIlroy following Pádraig’s path
But the 20-year-old Holywood sensation still looks up to the triple major-winning Dubliner as the perfect role model as he attempts to cast off the bridesmaid’s tag and become a multiple tournament winner.
Initially disappointed to finish only sixth in his defence of the Dubai Desert Classic on Sunday, McIlroy has skipped three places above Harrington to a career high of seventh in the latest world rankings.
His meteoric rise to the top has come thanks to 13 top 10 finishes since his Dubai win 12 months ago and while he is frustrated that he is still looking for that second tour win, Harrington’s transformation from serial whipping boy to world beater has given McIlroy renewed hope.
“You have to look at Pádraig in 2001,” McIlroy said at a function in Dublin yesterday. “He had seven or eight second-place finishes and now he is a three-time major winner. He bided his time and learned how to finish it off and now he is probably one of the best finishers on tour.”
Apart from his withdrawal through illness from December’s Nedbank Challenge, McIlroy has finished outside the top seven just once since he came joint third in the US PGA Championship at Hazeltine last August. But he knows that he may have to take practical steps to push on and start winning regularly and he sees the mental game as an area where there might be room for improvement.
Asked if he’d considered taking on a mental coach, McIlroy said: “I think I probably will (go down that road) in the next couple of weeks. I’ve talked about it.
“The thing about a psychologist is you know what they’re going to say, it’s the reinforcement, the repetition.
“They tell you so many times it is embedded into your brain and you don’t have to think about it. I’ve read all of Bob Rotellea’s books, and it does help. I’m not saying I will go to Bob, but I will look into it anyway.”
As for his form, McIlroy knows that it bodes well as he prepares to kick off a run of eight consecutive PGA Tour events in the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship in Tucson in a fortnight.
“If I can keep playing like that and keep giving myself chances as always sooner or later I will win,” McIlroy said after contending in Abu Dhabi and Dubai in his first two starts of the year. “Hopefully it will come along sooner rather than later. I have been thinking about it a lot and winning is a habit. If you win, and win again quite soon after, you get into a feeling of knowing how to finish it off.
“If I can get another win early in the season it will give me the confidence to know that when I’m in contention again, I can finish it. I want to win multiple times this year and I will be disappointed if I don’t.
“I’ve felt like I have put myself into great positions last year to win more than once and didn’t quite do it. I feel I should be able to learn from that this year and draw on my experience and learn from my mistakes.”
McIlroy was suffering from a niggling back injury in Dubai but hopes that everything will be cleared up by the time he heads out to the US for an eight-tournament stretch before returning for the BMW PGA at Wentworth in May.
He explained: “It’s been something that’s been at me the last couple of years, which is why I started working with my physio Cornell (Driesson) who worked with the South African rugby team and the South African hockey team and he does a couple of guys on tour.
“Everyone talks about this move that I do with my swing, where the hips go backwards and then go forwards and that puts a little strain on the lower back. I do all the exercises I can to make everything stronger around the joints.
“If I play two weeks in a row it is fine, three weeks it starts to niggle and four weeks it starts to hurt.
“It is a matter of rest and managing my schedule so that I am not going to play too many weeks in a row.”
As for rumours that he has been offered a multi-million dollar contract to sign for Nike, McIlroy insisted that he has no plans to leave Titleist before his contract expires in 2012. He said: “I’m very comfortable with my clubs at the minute. I’ve played Titleist all my life and it is nice to not to have to change.”
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