Rory McIlroy’s US Open at Torrey Pines built around ‘freewheeling’ approach

Rory McIlroy is trying to recapture his “freewheeling” approach to majors to end a seven-year winning drought at this week’s US Open at Torrey Pines.

Slow starts have been an issue – over all majors since the start of 2015, he has been a cumulative 35 over par.

“It’s a matter of freewheeling from the Thursday and not the Friday,” he said. “It’s about playing as free as I can.”

McIlroy was 22 when he won the 2011 US Open at Congressional, setting 11 tournament records, and he followed that with the 2012 US PGA Championship and 2014 Open and PGA titles.

He has had 12 top-10 finishes in majors since then but when asked to explain his first-round struggles, the world number 11 replied: “[I’m] probably just putting a little too much pressure on myself, playing too carefully, being a little tentative.

“If I went out and played this golf course any other week, [I’d] play free, and it’s just the same thing. You just have to be able to swing with that freedom, and that’s sort of what I’m trying to get back to.

“There’s no surprise that if I do have, say, not a great first day that I’m able to play well the rest of the tournament because that does free you up. It’s like, OK, well, the bad one’s out of the way, and now I can just sort of freewheel.”

McIlroy, who has been tinkering with his swing this year, missed the cut at the Masters in April and shared 49th at May’s US PGA Championship but he ended a run of 18 months without a victory by winning on the PGA Tour at Quail Hollow last month.

“I won a tournament four or five weeks ago, so it’s there,” he said. “The technical and mechanical parts of it are all there. It’s just a matter of going out in a US Open setting and just trusting what I’ve been doing in practice.”

McIlroy will play with England’s Justin Rose – the 2013 US Open champion – and world number one Dustin Johnson, who won the 2016 title, in the first two rounds this week. They start their first round on Thursday at 21:36 BST.

‘Torrey Pines rough too thick’

Meanwhile Ireland’s reigning Open champion Shane Lowry believes the course set-up “will give the longer hitters a bit of an advantage because there’s not much trouble out there, only rough, and the further you’re off in the rough, the easier it is”.

That may aid defending champion Bryson DeChambeau, who can be wayward off the tee and plans to “bomb and gouge” his way round the course as he did when he won at Winged Foot last September.

US Open courses are famed for having narrow fairways and fast-running greens both bordered by thick rough but Lowry thinks it is too punishing.

“The rough is actually too thick,” said the world number 41, who won the 2019 Open at Royal Portrush and will defend his title at Royal St George’s next month after last year’s tournament was cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“I think the rough being so thick actually takes a little bit of the skill level out of it. When it’s off a tight lie, I think that’s when there’s more skill involved.

“There are a lot of times where you get around the greens and missing the green and it’s a bit of a hit-and-hope and a bit of luck involved.

“It’s all about leaving yourself in the right spots and taking the big numbers off the card. Let your mistakes be bogeys and try to make your birdies when you get your chances.”