McIlroy bids to rebuild confidence

Bloodied but unbowed from his British Open experience, Rory McIlroy will bid to restore some confidence in his swing ahead of the final Major of the year.

The promise of an opening, three-under par 67 at Royal Lytham & St Annes last Thursday faded over the 54 holes that followed with over-par rounds of 75-73-73 sending the 23-year-old Major winner plummeting down the leaderboard.

His final round yesterday was undone in the same manner his Masters bid in 2011 unravelled from the 10th tee at Augusta National. McIlroy started his round with a bogey-double-bogey run between the second and fourth holes and once again, that was a setback from which he could not recover.

“I don’t know, maybe Major championships on the toughest courses expose maybe a few weaknesses that you have there,” McIlroy said with a shrug.

“I mean, Portrush [at the Irish Open last month] was a pretty gentle course in terms of what we’re facing this week. So when you see heavy rough on the left and bunkers on the right, you start thinking about that a little bit if you’re not 100% confident about what you’re doing.

“It’s hard when you’re trying to just get that little bit of momentum and you try to force it and you’re maybe trying too hard and things don’t go your way, and that sort of happened this week.”

McIlroy now turns his attentions towards the United States where he will resume tournament play in a fortnight at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational in Akron before heading to Kiawah Island on South Carolina’s Atlantic coast for the final Major of the year, the PGA Championship.

He will be buoyed not so much by his competitive play at Lytham but by the work he has put in with coach Michael Bannon on the practice range.

“I wanted to get off to a fast start both days, yesterday and today, and did the complete opposite. So that meant I was struggling from early on.

“And then I played okay coming in. It was actually better. I had a good practice session on the range last night and feel like I found something good there.

“So that’s something that I can work on this week and look forward to getting to Akron and trying to play there.

“We were searching a little bit Friday night and last night but we feel like we found something there last night and had a really good session. And actually I feel like I hit the ball pretty well out there today, just got off to the bad start. But, yeah, I’ve got something to work on for the next few weeks.”

In the meantime, McIlroy will need to emerge from the disappointment he felt at another British Open that started with such promise but ended under a cloud.

“I’m obviously very disappointed because I felt like I was coming in here playing pretty well. I had a really nice first round, set myself up well for the week and then just started to struggle after that. So it’s just disappointing.

“I’ve just got to stay patient and just keep working away and it will turn around. Everyone goes through little struggles. What I’m experiencing at the minute is frustrating at times, but it’s not anything that I can’t deal with.”