McIlroy turns his sights to Masters assault after early Match Play exit
RORY McIlroy’s bid for a second WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play title came to a disappointing early end as he bowed out of the group stage in Austin.
McIlroy needed to beat American left-hander Brian Harman to have a chance of reaching the last 16, but gifted his opponent several holes on his way to a comprehensive 5&3 defeat.
The 2015 champion, who came into the event on the back of a victory in the Arnold Palmer Invitational, made a mess of the third, fifth and ninth to fall three down and a conceded birdie on the 10th was matched by Harman from eight feet.
Another Harman birdie on the next extended his lead before he gave McIlroy a glimmer of hope by finding water with his approach to the par-five 12th.
However, while McIlroy could only par the short 13th after attempting to drive the green, Harman pitched to four feet for another birdie and the pair were soon shaking hands on the 15th green.
McIlroy will at least have the consolation of some desired extra time off before stepping up his bid for a first Masters title at Augusta National, which would make him the sixth player to complete a career Grand Slam.
McIlroy said: “I wish I was hanging around for the weekend, but I’ll rest up and get a little bit of work in before going to Augusta,” said McIlroy.
“Going from winning on Sunday to travelling on Monday and getting an early practice on Tuesday to play on Wednesday, I didn’t have a lot of time to sort of recharge the batteries.
“Obviously I have a couple of days extra at home that I wasn’t planning on. I’ll just chill out, rest up a little bit, recharge the batteries, get into the gym.
“Have a good week training and a good practice week and just get myself ready for Augusta. I’m excited about it — it should be good.”
Harman (below), who ended the group stage unbeaten with two and a half points from three matches, said: “I played really well. I only made one over-par hole and made five or six birdies and was in the fairway and on the green a lot.
“It felt like I was able to put some pressure on the golf course and in match play I feel that’s really important. “You can actually gain a little bit of an advantage if you’re first coming into the green and, for me, I’ve played with Rory enough times to know that I can’t keep up with him off the tee box.”
Harman’s win meant he topped the group ahead of compatriot Peter Uihlein, who beat McIlroy on day one and Jhonattan Vegas 4&3 on Friday.
Harman will face Bubba Watson in the last 16 after the twotime Masters champion birdied the final two holes to halve his match with Julian Suri.
The winner of that contest will take on either Charles Howell or Kiradech Aphibarnrat in the quarter-finals. Howell claimed his third win of the week over Satoshi Kodaira, rendering Phil Mickelson’s victory over Rafa Cabrera Bello irrelevant.
Aphibarnrat also maintained his 100 per cent record with a 4&3 win over last year’s runner-up Jon Rahm. FTER retiring as an inter-county goalkeeper for Derry, Eoin McNicholl was examining ways to make it further into the world of preparing athletes when a chance encounter with former Ireland Rugby strength and conditioning trainer Mick McGurn set him on a path that has him preparing the Northern Ireland netball team as they head for the Commonwealth Games in Australia next month.
McNicholl’s head was spinning during that seminar in Blanchardstown with the expertise all around. Alongside McGurn was Mick Clegg, the one-time Manchester United strength and conditioning coach who is widely credited with transforming Christiano Ronaldo from slightly awkward teenager to Adonis.
Ashley Jones, the former All Blacks and Wallabies S&C coach, was on McGurn’s other shoulder, and still McGurn generously turned the conversation to Gaelic games to include Glenullin man McNicholl.
“It wasn’t long after I gave up the ghost and retired from Derry,” he recalls.
“He kind of knew me through that, my name was in the paper for retiring at the end of the league and he had called me on first name terms.
“I was kind of surprised that he knew me and after the course I went up and met him, to ask him how things were.
“I asked him if there was any way I could help, if there was anything he might recommend, anybody I could go and see and any courses I should attend.”
The two stayed in touch and McGurn mentored him for a couple of years, recommending various courses and making connections, until the role of Northern Ireland Netball S&C coach came up and he put him in touch with head coach Elaine Rice, and the rest is soon to be history.
McNicholl was something of a boy wonder and an early achiever in his own sport. In one 18-month spell he won the All-Ireland minor title with Derry in
2002, captured a MacRory
Cup and later a Hogan
Cup with St Patrick’s Maghera as schools All-Ireland champion, beating St Jarlath’s of
Tuam in the final.
He also represented
Ireland in the Under-17 International Rules series against Australia.
In 2013, his younger brother Neil McNicholl also won the MacRory and Hogan
Cups with St Patrick’s, and it is very rare indeed that a family have two sets of both medals.
But after he retired from senior inter-county duty in
April 2016, he found himself with a surfeit of time.
“Going from playing for Derry, I would say we were at the top level, playing in Division
One league finals and
❝ I would find it hard to sit too long in the house so the next thing was to get out and do a bit of coaching, getting into other sports
competing in the Ulster Championship,” he states.
“But you are out four nights a week and, once I finished playing for Derry, I suppose you were sitting in the house for a couple of weeks wondering what to do with your time, and the next step was to get into a bit of coaching. I would find it hard to sit too long in the house in the evenings so the next thing was to get out and do a bit of coaching, getting into other sports.” After university he undertook the UKSCA course to become an accredited strength coach. As part of that he spent a week interning for Phil Richards, who had looked after that part of Amir Khan’s preparations when he was in his prime, along with various teams such as Worcester Warriors and Bolton Wanderers.
Since then it has been a series of conventions and lectures all over Europe in his quest for the latest, cutting edge information on the art and science of strength.
On Good Friday he is bound for Galway where former Irish rugby coach Eddie O’Sullivan is one of the keynote speakers, along with Lukasz Kirszenstein who was S&C coach for last year’s All-Ireland winning Galway hurlers.
“Every day is a learning day. You can never say you have learned enough,” is his own philosophy.
“Every day, you are thinking about who you could work with next, who you are going to visit or make the connection with because you are dealing with other sports.
“I have taken so many rugby drills, football drills and different things that you can put together and into the netball scene and hurling teams.”
Last year he gained much praise for his work with the burgeoning crop of young hurlers of Dunloy, who won an Antrim county title, and manager Gregory O’Kane paid warm tribute to the work McNicholl had carried out.
He explains his role as: “It’s bringing everything on board, like the recovery methods, developing the strength, developing the conditioning and bringing it all together in game-related conditions and what is going to suit those players best.
“Greg is a very clued-in lad. He doesn’t just hold himself down to one particular area, he realises that to get the best out of the players you have to broaden the horizons a bit, and take on all areas of athleticism, rather than just the game itself and