Rory McIlroy knew he was struggling with his putting, so he made some changes after the PGA Championship.
He hired Phil Kenyon, who works with Henrik Stenson among others, as his putting coach. When Nike announced it would stop making golf clubs and balls, McIlroy picked up a Scotty Cameron putter and put it in his bag.
The changes didn’t look to working at Bethpage Black at last weekend’s Barclays, with McIlroy missing litany short putts.
What a difference a week can make.
Entering the final round six shots behind Paul Casey, McIlroy shot 6-under 65 early in the action at TPC Boston. Turns out, it stood up. McIlroy won the Deutsche Bank Championship on Monday by two shots over Casey, taking his first PGA Tour title of the season at 15-under 269.
“I found something in my putting,” said McIlroy after the win, sounding more like Phil Mickelson. “Obviously my putting’s been the Achilles heel of my game this year. I tweaked a tiny little tweak on Saturday morning on the putting green, and I saw some putts go in and got some confidence from that. Just went with the momentum, and just really proud of myself that I was able to keep that momentum going, keep the same thoughts and not get negative if I did hit a bad putt, just really kept staying positive the whole way throughout the weekend.”
McIlroy gained 5.3 strokes putting for the week, marking just the second time in the last two PGA Tour seasons that the Ulsterman has gained at least a stroke per round on the field on the greens.
The four-time major winner now has a pair of wins on the season, and both of them were the sort that lifted weight off McIlroy’s shoulders. The first came in the Irish Open, a tournament he hosts and which benefits his foundation. He’d never won it, and the 5-wood he hit at the last to set up the winning eagle putt was a shot that meant he could finally breathe deep, with his chest out, on the Emerald Isle.
This win is that kind of deep exhale. After he’d been passed in the last two seasons by Jason Day, Jordan Spieth and Dustin Johnson, McIlroy needed a trophy. This win not only gets him PGA Tour title No. 12, it also gets him past Jordan Spieth in the Official World Golf Ranking. The top four? Day, Johnson, McIlroy, Spieth.
“It’s definitely not the finished article, but it’s a big step in the right direction, but just excitement,” McIlroy said of his game. “Excited with how my game is and what I’ve found this week, and hopefully I can keep it
going for the next couple of tournaments.”
Now McIlroy is in position to have a fall run like he did four years ago. Back in 2012, he won his first Deutsche Bank title, then he went to Crooked Stick for its turn to host the BMW Championship and dominated the field. Then he was on a winning Ryder Cup team in the United States.
Where’s he going later this week? Crooked Stick. What will have wrapped on Sunday in four weeks? The Ryder Cup.
Ryan Ballengee is a Yahoo Sports contributor. Find him on Facebook and Twitter.
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