McIlroy eager to pick up where he left off
2016 FedEx champ healthy, says short game is sharp
In the final week before returning to professional golf, Rory McIlroy played a round of golf with the leader of the free world and six days later with golf ’s leader of the official world rankings, Dustin Johnson.
“We were joking. It was quite a week for me. I got to the play with the president of the United States and the best golfer in the world,” McIlroy said Tuesday at Club de Golf Chapultepec, home to this week’s World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship.
Oh, and he had lunch with Tiger Woods during the week.
As McIlroy said, it was quite a way to end his time away as he nursed a rib injury back to health. A hairline fracture in his rib was discovered after he finished second in the South African Open in mid-January. He didn’t touch a club for 10 days and slowly worked his way back into form, missing two tournaments in the Middle East, the Genesis Open in Los Angeles and last week’s Honda Classic near his Florida home in Palm Beach Gardens.
Despite playing just twice in the last seven weeks, McIlroy said he’s good to go.
“There’s no excuse for my short game not to be sharp this week. I spent a lot of time around the short game area,” McIlroy said.
He’s still using Kinesio tape around the rib and is taking longer to warm up, more out of precaution than pain. He played his first full round of golf 10 days ago and has added three more rounds since. His game was sharp Saturday as he shot 65 at The Bear’s Club in Florida against Johnson, who took over as the No. 1 player in the world during McIlroy’s absence.
McIlroy, the 2016 FedExCup champion and four-time major champion, dropped from No. 2 to No. 3.
He was frustrated during his time off, first dealing with the injury and then watching Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth, Hideki Matsuyama, Rickie Fowler and Johnson win. He said he hasn’t thought much about the Masters despite losing precious opportunities to keep his game sharp. Instead, he concentrated his energy on getting healthy.
“So frustrating, to say the least, especially at the start of the season when I felt like I was playing well,” he said. “But rehab is what it is and you just try to get healthy and get back there, and it only makes me more excited to be here this week and try to play well. ...
“It’s been tough to miss all these weeks especially with DJ winning, Jordan winning, Rickie winning, Hideki winning, Justin winning. It’s been a really great group of guys that have won the last few weeks, and it’s been a little bit tough for me even though most of those guys are my friends. It’s tough to be sitting at home watching those guys doing what they’re doing whenever you can’t get out there.”
He got back out there Tuesday and was surprised to see how far he was hitting the ball even knowing he was playing in high altitude. As was the case when he played with Johnson, the speed of his swing was there.
“I feel like I’m ready to go,” he said. “But at the same time I haven’t played competitively for six or seven weeks. But the last time I did play competitively I played all right, so hopefully I can just pick up where I left off. ...
“I think it’s nice I get to play four rounds, see where my game is, take the week off next week, reassess, how’s my body feel, how’s my game feel and then from there I can start to think about the Masters and think about what I really need to do to get ready for Augusta.”