Rory McIlroy shares tips to improve your drive | GOLFPASS: Lessons with a Champion Golfer

Martin Hall here with the great Rory McIlroy and his longtime coach Michael Bannon he's guided you since childhood thank you so much for allowing us to do this is to really be with one of you look this is going to be like a fly-on-the-wall thing we're going to look at how you two work together and let's get started with well it's the driver you've got the big dog yet let's talk fundamentals what did you two do from early days to now what do you work on Michael with the fundamentals with the driver for Rory I suppose for me it's a when we started off Rory would pick an intermediate target and we would set him up and even up the ball inside your left foot yeah yeah inside the left foot especially with the driver I mean not I sometimes have a tendency to get the ball too far forward trying to sort of lean backing and get you know get a bit of lunch on it but anywhere sort of yeah you know on the left heel is a is a decent place for me to set up with the driver where would you pick that intermediate target I think that'd be my first question to you for me to try and set up with any club but especially the driver you know I think I'm set up somewhere over this blue flag in front of me here I mean I'm looking I'm trying to pick something out in the in the groin maybe two feet in front of me and I pick a spot there and then I see it and then I just try and my first I'm always just trying to line myself up to this spot which is basically it's this little greenness on this pebble I can see here and I set up to it there and I know that once I look up on my target I know that I'm I'm a man exactly where I need to and that's you know that's I feel it's very it's much easier to see him at a point that's just in front of you than it is the M it's something 200 yards away Michael is that something Rory has always done or something you encouraged him to do at a young age well it'll be hard for him to remember it's been so long ago but that would have been what we would have done you know was to try and line him up that way and I think with the body alignment Rory has he's always more comfortable a little open a little open sometimes with the driver I could get a little open with my upper body and a little close to my my lower body so that the two lines don't so I I mean there's a lot of times I'll use an alignment stick and put that on the ground just for a reference to know that that where my feet of my knees hips shoulders are all aligned in the in the right direction have you ever used any images with Rory for set up I mean some people talk about railway tracks is that anything you've ever know then the early days that would have been we've been in railway tracks yeah you know we would say that the Oder railway track at the ball points at the target and then the inner one is where the the alignment the fake knees hips and shoulders are all line two and hopefully without them you can sort of gauge and get that sense of land up parallel Harley I was the big word parallel is a big word but also for me those railway tracks are a great visual for someone but sometimes for me as I was saying with my tendency to be open with my upper body and maybe a little close as my lower is I try to feel like that that railway track that the ball is is parallel to the target but even just go a little bit that's just a little bit left with lower body so I feel sometimes that that encourages me especially with the driver and I feel like my impact position is sort of sad already you know I'm like it enables my left have to clear a little bit more I don't you know I think with the set up of the golf swing if you have a very solid set up and very good basic fundamentals it makes the motion of swinging a club that much easier well I can't wait any longer I'm here with Rory McIlroy Michael Bannon you've got to hit one Rory we've got more to talk about with fundamentals but I'm going to get every bit out of this at I can so let's see you smash one down there true Rory McIlroy fashion I'm sure sure yeah Michael said good shot it certainly was that was an absolute corker as Henri longer would have said now look Michael you told me something just before the cameras are rolling I wonder if Rory remembers you told me about something you did with his grip early on because as a teacher I'm fascinated about this this wonderful journey you two have had and there's this Beethoven that you got as a as a young man - genius obviously but talk a little bit about the grip and what you did with the grip I think is fascinating and in the early days whenever Rory started to play golf his grip was very very strong it might have been as far over as on the left hand as for knuckles yeah so I did explain to him that you know that's good for him for a while but once he got stronger then the right hand would take over and he would end up having the ball so I kind of left it to him knew that he had to change that at one time and it was interesting because he actually came to me when he was about 11 or 12 and said I think it's time to change my grip do you remember that yourself clearly I do I mean I I've always been one to I mean and it does go back to those days I've always taken responsibility for my own game and I you know I'm always I still know I trying to think of ways that I can improve and get better and and even still we I mean we made a back in in the middle of 2016 so not that long ago we made a little tweak to my grip I felt like and I actually changed the grips on my clubs I had I had reminders or rib grips and I felt like the grip I was I was gripping it too much in my fingers on my left hand was getting a little strong again so I went back to Reyn grips so that I could get a little bit not weak but but a little more neutral and in my left hand and a member playing the French Open in 2016 I'm feeling very uncomfortable with my grip all week because I was just trying to make a slight little change to it and obviously you grip the club a certain way for so long any little bit of difference is gonna feel quite awkward for that first week or so so I'm always trying to change things and while I'm trying to improve things and trying to try and make them better I think you use one word there and I'd like your comments both if you would please on that you said that felt uncomfortable you played the French Open with an uncomfortable I think a lot of people who would be watching this they want you know what rory mcilroy he must always be comfortable over the ball are you always comfortable oh no not at all because I very much believe in the process and I believe in an improvement there's always gonna be that little period of change which is going to be uncomfortable you know even even though with some of the stuff I'm working on on my swing it's it's not 100 percent natural for me to do it but I know in the long run it's going to be good for me and it's gonna make me a better golfer I think that is so vital to the people watching this piece so I think you've worked on correct as opposed to comfortable which i think is terrific for both of you we talked as well Michael about the difference between a little bit between alignment and aim can you just talk about those two things for please the two things are connected the alignment is aligning all the parts of your body from your toes your knees your hips and shoulders and try to get them parallel and then what we do is we am not on the railway track so right you know you could have a railway track but you could have your alignment set perfect but aiming in the wrong direction so you try and align your body parts first of all get a good posture with it and then align your your toes here on your whole body parallel to the railway track that the balls on that's the other little attack now that we're in stance and you've hit at least one wonderful shot this morning I'm sure you'll get many more can we just talk a little bit about ball position yeah sure and we're using the driver obviously so we want to do you encourage Roy to hit up with the driver a little bit Michael I mean Rory knows it's a very much a sensory player a field player and he knows what he has to do and he will place that ball in there in the position that he needs to play a certain shot I mean Rory can play all shots I mean he'll tell you himself he can play any shots he he wants for example he can play a shot which is very very interesting to call it we call it the bullet and we see it yes sure consider what is the bullet the board is basically you know if it's a windy day into the wind did you grow up in the wind a little bit you wouldn't think it with how high I hit it sometimes but I'm so basically it's me getting into my setup and knowing that I need to hit a low driver into the wind and I really don't do much differently I mean I don't the balls still up on my stance but basically all I'm trying to do here is you know I'm when I get to the top with a with my normal Drive there's a little bit of right band and I do head up on the ball and this I'm trying to sort of level out my angle of attack so you know it's a much shallower much more piercing ball flight so I'll see if I can do one here but if they say all I'm trying to do all my thought is is trying to keep my height on the downswing and not getting into my right side so much here it comes the bullet ladies and gentlemen well that was probably less than half the height of the previous shot I'm aware of what I'm doing but I'm still a field player and an all I feel during that shot is is I from the top I keep my height a little bit more and I shallow up my angle of attack and the ball comes out a little bit lower yeah I think that's interesting that the tee height didn't change there because a lot of I know that they were and I noticed that can I ask you just one more thing that I have a feeling you two have worked on width in the takeaway artificial width too much with not enough with talk about width in the takeaway please Michael well I think the width in the takeaway is created at the very initial stage of the swing where you got that connection between the body term and the arm swing going back together sometimes people can try to create too much width by going back and the body doesn't turn it off and they're over here it's the wrong way to do it you must get that connection from the very start of your left arm and your body turning together is that you yeah it is because I I like the I like the feeling of width I like to feel like when especially with the driver I take a buck and I've got a nice wide turn but if you don't if if everything doesn't work away together and all of a sudden you do this you're so out of sync in your disconnectors and then you're gonna have to compensate at some point during your swing so yeah for me it's I love that feeling of width but it all has to turn back together as one unit can we see that yeah we hit one yeah going through the process here he's picking out his intermediate get as he said the grip is good the train lines a train track is good here we go nice good takeaway urn nice bit of width that was right that would still find the edge of the fairway gentlemen that was fantastic Michael join me in the middle here please so the takeaways there for you at home you need to get the alignment correct the train tracks that's really important the ball position certainly matters intermediate target yes that absolutely matters and then some width in the takeaway it's interesting to me that the player of your caliber still works on what many would think is the simple stuff be easier but it's vital that is that's that's me if you get the simple stuff right in the golf swing everything else is is so much easier you

Channel: Golf Channel

Views: 3,680,642

Keywords: Golf channel, NBC, golf, pga tour, lpga tour, European tour, Rory McIlroy, Rory McIlroy swing, Rory McIlroy swing slow motion, Rory McIlroy slow motion swing, Rory McIlroy highlights, golfpass, Rory McIlroy interview, golf instruction, golf instruction driver, Rory McIlroy driver

Id: UNkUryf1yJY

Length: 11min 32sec (692 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 10 2020