Rory's Putting

I don't think it's technique or his putter. It's a mental issue - belief and confidence - and the only way he's going to change that is by holing more putts.

A vicious, or virtuous circle depending.....

A fairly incisive observation. At the moment McIlroy is bereft of any degree of confidence and that has to filter through the rest of the game. Look at how Spieth holed out for the majority of the Masters. It meant he could play with confidence and trust himself to save par. Same with Willett. He made a few good birdie and par putts on Saturday and suddenly had belief on the greens which let him go for the shots
 
Just a couple of points which give an idea of the two players relative virtues and short comings:

Strokes gained putting - RM 95th, JS 20th
Scrambling - RM 69th, JS 46th
Greens in reg - RM 43rd, JS 166th

I'm no statistician, mathematician or golf pro, but my interpretation from that is that Rory is quite a way behind in the short game stakes, but Jordan is a long way behind on the long game.
As some of the commentators said over the weekend, Spieth put a huge amount of pressure on his short game, and it may not always hold up.
Rory can play majestic long game shots, but seems to make big mistakes when his long games goes awry, thus getting U&D seems harder, but generally hits more greens and gives himself more opportunities.

I reckon that Rory's A game is the better of the two by a small margin, but Spieth's B game is generally miles better than Rory's B game.

Nailed it.
 
Top