TULSA, Okla. – Rory McIlroy first set foot on the grounds of Southern Hills Country Club on Monday.
He already feels right at home.
“I really liked it,” McIlroy said Tuesday about his first impressions of the course that hosts the 104th PGA Championship. On Monday he played a practice round with Tiger Woods. “I didn’t know what this place was like before Gil (Hanse) got his hands on it (for a restoration in 2019), but I think he’s done a wonderful job with it. Love the green complexes. I love that he gives you options off the tee.
“I think you’re going to see a lot of different strategies this week, guys hitting driver where maybe other guys aren’t and vice versa. It’s a really good track. I really enjoyed playing it (Monday) and I think it’s going to be a wonderful test.”
The four-time major champion and two-time PGA champion said he did a little digging on the Internet ahead of his arrival to Oklahoma to glean as much information of the course as he could. He also studied flyovers of the holes, which reveal Hanse and his crew took out hundreds of trees and widened some fairways. And McIlroy mined for nuggets from Tim Gillis, who played in the Senior PGA Championship at Southern Hills last year.
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“Iron play and chipping is going to be really important this week,” McIlroy said. “And I think getting out there yesterday, one of the things I loved is the way they’ve cut the runoffs, it’s very hard to putt from off the greens. They’re trying to get wedges in guys’ hands, which I really like.”
McIlroy also knows that if he doesn’t know about a problem he shouldn’t worry about it.
“I’ve won a couple of major championships where I’ve played nine holes on Tuesday, nine holes on Wednesday and sort of teed it up and played really well. Sometimes not knowing where the trouble is, ignorance is bliss in some ways,” he said. “For me I’ll take execution over preparation any day. If you’re executing the shots and you’re hitting the ball well and the ball is looking where you’re going, that’s more than half the battle.
“I feel like I’m executing well. But it doesn’t mean you’re not preparing or looking at things. I think these greens require a little more time spent on them than some others. But I think strategy off the tee and into the greens is pretty simple, and then it gets a little more nuanced whenever you get on and around the greens.”
McIlroy hasn’t won a major since capturing the 2014 PGA Championship. He’s been asked about his drought going on eight full years now often and responds by saying he’s not putting any extra pressure on himself to get No. 5.
He’s one of the favorites – the world No. 7 shot a final-round 64 to finish second in the Masters and finished fifth in his last start in the Wells Fargo Championship.
“I think the most consistent way to get yourself to be able to have chances to win these major championships is to sort of adopt a conservative strategy. Tiger did it most of his career, and OK, he had a couple of huge wins in there, but a lot of times being conservative with his strategy, letting other guys make the mistakes,” McIlroy said. “Pars are pretty good in major championships, and that’s sort of the philosophy that I believe in going forward.
“I feel good about my game. I’ve done some good work. I’ve led greens in regulation the last two tournaments I’ve played. That’s something that hasn’t quite been there, and that’s something you need to do, especially around here. You hit greens here, you’re going to give yourself birdie chances. The targets are pretty small, pretty limited with where the hole locations will be, so you hit it into the middle of the greens here, you’re going to have decent chances.
“I feel good about it all. I’m certainly in a better place with my game than where I was this time last year going into Kiawah. Happy about that.”
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