A cleansing of the memory bank can sometimes do no harm at all. In Rory McIlroy’s case, the deep clean came on two fronts: one, to erase any flashbacks to his opening 79 in the first round of The Players at TPC Sawgrass a year ago when he missed the cut; then, of a more recent nature, to forget his nosedive down, from leader to also-ran, in last week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational.
On count one, what’s his take? “I don’t want to tempt fate but there would have to be a drastic change in my game from now until Thursday for me to go and shoot 79 in the first round, but it is golf and you never know. I just feel more comfortable with where my game is, where my swing is at.”
And, of a more recent vintage, has he quickly moved on from his backwards journey over the weekend at Bay Hill? “Yeah, I think so, yeah. I think sometimes those Mondays between tournaments can be important to just sort of slip the switch a little bit and recharge, and then you wake up on Tuesday morning and feel a bit better about everything and you get after it again.”
Of his harsh post-round comments about the course set-up at Bay Hill, McIlroy’s self-confessed complaining was proven to be a shared emotion by others: “Look, it was the same for everyone. I certainly get that. But there was a lot of alcoholic beverages being drunk in the locker room when I went in there on Sunday [evening] by a lot of players, so it wasn’t just me out there having a rough time.”
In this latest edition of The Players, the flagship event of the PGA Tour, McIlroy will be in the company of Collin Morikawa and Justin Thomas for the opening two rounds of a tournament – digging further back into his memory bank for feelgood vibes – which he won in 2019.
McIlroy’s form so far this year – 12th-3rd-10th-13th – has been solid with one great chance to win and three others that, at different stages of the tournaments, offered outside chances. In going in the wrong direction from first to 13th over the weekend at Bay Hill, McIlroy would like, as he alluded to, to flick a switch and getting back contending quickly on a course with which he has had a love/hate relationship through the years, veering more on the love side these days.
“[It’s] just about trusting commitment around here, and I think I just showed a lot of trust and commitment in myself to hit the shots I needed to hit whenever coming down the stretch to try to win the golf tournament [in 2019].
“That’s sort of what you need to do in every golf tournament, but especially around here when there’s a lot of trouble and visually it’s quite intimidating off some of these tees. To have full trust and commitment in what you’re doing is very important.”
This week, The Players has a record pot of gold – an €18 million purse, with €3.3 million to the winner – on offer.
Is it too much? “I think we’re paid as much as people are willing to pay us, I guess. You can say the same thing about footballers or any other athletes. It’s like you could argue that they’re paid too little or too much, but you’re only worth what people are willing to pay you.
“I’d say at this point we’re pretty fairly paid. The top guys earn a lot of money, and I think that’s right. Even the guys that are not at the top, they still earn a really, really good living. I think it’s a good structure.”
But, coming down the stretch, it is not the money that is the driving force: “At the end of the day, you’re just trying to win a golf tournament. Whether that pays you whatever, a million dollars or one pound or whatever it is, it’s trying to win a golf tournament.”
