Rory McIlroy ordered by Ryder Cup hero Paul McGinley to get help following another ‘pathetic’ putting display
Four-time Major champion missed the cut at US PGA after yet another dismal showing on the greens
PAUL McGINLEY called for Rory McIlroy to get help to solve his ‘pathetic’ putting — after he missed the cut for the second time in the last three Majors.
‘Pathetic’ was McIlroy’s own assessment of his performance on the greens at Baltusrol, where rounds of 74 and 69 saw him head for the airport.
Ryder Cup hero McGinley says McIlroy must accept that players such as world No 1 Jason Day and double Major winner Jordan Spieth could leave him behind.
McIlroy took 65 putts in the first two rounds at Baltusrol as he finished on three over par.
He was the third-best player in the 156-man field off the tee — but FIFTH-BOTTOM of the putting stats.
As McIlroy kept missing short putts, defending champion Day was on a roll, bagging seven birdies in eight holes to charge into contention.
Irishman McGinley said: “If you want to be the best player in the world, you’ve got to deal with situations where players are out-putting you, like we saw Jason Day do.
“It’s one of the big frustrations of the game if you’re playing well but not particularly putting well — and the other guys are.
“Rory is reaching a different level of his career, where the guys coming up behind him are really closing the gap and maybe overtaking him.
“We all know Rory has got all the talent in the world. But he will have to reassess how he’s going to go about his game — and maybe change a couple of things.
“This is a time for reflection for Rory now, he’s not the new kid on the block any more. He is getting older and getting married soon.
“He is one of the more experienced players here.
“We talk about resilience and all of the mental attributes the great players have had — and Rory has shown them in the past. That is what we need to see him showing again.
“A lot of it is confidence, as it’s not like he’s overly weak in any particular area of his game.
“His putting may be the weakest area of them all — but it’s not as if he’s yipping putts or it’s off-the-scale bad.”
But McIlroy admitted his putting was appalling.
He said: “Tee to green, my game was good. But it was just pathetic when I got on to the green. I need to go back to the drawing board and see where we go from here.
“If you had given anyone else my tee shots this week they would have been near the top of the leaderboard. It just shows how bad I was around the greens.”
McGinley is one of McIlroy’s closest allies. They worked closely to plot Europe’s stunning Ryder Cup victory at Gleneagles two years ago.
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And McIlroy led the campaign for McGinley to be made captain, so maybe he will follow his advice and bring in a specialist putting coach. It was a surprise when McIlroy stopped working with putting guru Dave Stockton last year.
Dave Pelz, who has helped Phil Mickelson develop the best short game in golf, would probably welcome a call, too.
McIlroy won 11 times when he was working with Stockton and claimed three of his four Major victories.
The other member of his group over the first 36 holes, Open runner-up Mickelson, admitted it had been painful to watch McIlroy’s struggles with the short stick.
He said: “We all have periods where we have mental blocks on the greens. Right now he’s so tentative through impact. He’s not confident.
“You watch him with a driver and it’s the sweetest thing you can imagine — but you can just tell he’s not happy with the putter.”
Missing the cut in the US Open at Oakmont last month hurt McIlroy but not as much as this early exit.
He has regularly singled out the USPGA as his favourite Major — he won it in 2012 and 2014 and has twice finished third.
But since that victory two years ago he has not been a factor in any of his seven Major appearances, with two top-five finishes at the Masters disguising the fact he was never really in the hunt.
McIlroy added: “It’s really disheartening when you hit the ball so well and give yourself plenty of chances, but you can’t post decent scores.
“I need to do something. I need to figure out what to do on the greens. I’m going to have a long, hard think about that.”