McIlroy vows to stick with swing

Rory McIlroy’s swing has taken him into the world’s top 10 – and he has no intention of changing it despite some more back trouble.

The 20-year-old went for a scan last week after suffering a recurrence of his problem in Dubai and has been having treatment in Arizona prior to the start of the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship tomorrow.

Stretched ligaments have been diagnosed and it has been linked to a hip movement McIlroy makes, but it is just something he is going to have to manage.

“I can’t change. I’ve done this since I was two years old,” said the Northern Irish youngster, who opens his first event as a US Tour member against American Kevin Na.

“I only do it with my driver and longer clubs. It doesn’t happen with, say, five-iron onwards.

“This is fine compared to what it used to be. I remember the summer before the (2007) Walker Cup it was really bad.

“It comes and goes. If I play a couple of weeks in a row it’s fine. Three and I can feel it a little bit. The fourth week it starts to hurt.

“In the motion of swinging a club it’s fine, but it’s like picking the ball out of the hole and teeing the ball up and stuff.

“I just have to think about what way I have to do it, but it’s not painful. It’s like a niggle.”

South African physio Cornell Driesson, who has worked with the Springboks rugby team, is with McIlroy in Tucson and the player has been advised to ice it at night “and make sure I don’t do anything too strenuous”.

He reached the quarter-finals on the same Dove Mountain course – at 7,849 yards the longest in European Tour history – last year and as the fifth seed is hoping to go even further on his return.

Despite his rapid rise up the world rankings, McIlroy’s only professional victory remains last February’s Dubai Desert Classic.

“I know that if I keep giving myself chances it will happen,” he said. “I’d love to be able to say I want to win before The Masters, but you never know when it’s going to be your turn.

“You’ve just got to try to keep playing well.”

In his last 12 events, going back to his third place at the US PGA Championship last August, he has had no fewer than 10 top-seven finishes.

His schedule for the coming months has already been mapped out to avoid over-exerting himself with a long run of tournaments.

McIlroy’s next seven events are in the States, but he is doing no more than two in a row. His next start in Europe will be the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth in May, but it has not been decided yet whether he will then play the Wales Open at Celtic Manor – the course on which he should make his Ryder Cup debut in October – or The Memorial in Ohio.

Cup captain Colin Montgomerie is keen for as many of his contenders to play the Wales Open as possible, but several look likely to give it a miss again with the US Open only two weeks afterwards.

As well as addressing his physical condition McIlroy is also looking more at the mental side as his number of near misses goes up.

“I’ve pooh-poohed it a little bit in the past. I’ve read books and say ’Well, I sort of knew that’, but I suppose it’s the repetition until it’s embedded in your subconscious.

“It can’t hurt. It’s something I’m definitely going to do. Most guys go to see mental coaches when they’re playing poorly, but I want to be able to turn these top fives and top threes into wins.

“I think that getting someone on the mental side might enable me to get to that stage.”

If McIlroy, beaten by eventual winner Geoff Ogilvy 12 months ago, wins his first game he knows he will have a fellow European to play next – either England’s Oliver Wilson or Spaniard Miguel Angel Jimenez, the recent winner in Dubai.

He might then face his fellow Ulsterman Graeme McDowell, but McDowell has to get past Luke Donald first and then either Swede Peter Hanson or Australian Robert Allenby.