Rory McIlroy has explained his reasons for taking a golf lesson from renowned coach Butch Harmon.
The 34-year-old is in the field for this week’s Valero Texas Open in a final effort to be at his peak for next week’s Masters.
The TPC San Antonio tournament will be his sixth on the PGA Tour since the turn of the year, but despite that busy schedule, his form has remained patchy, with his swing in particular a cause for concern.
McIlroy explained that it was that aspect of his game that persuaded him to turn to the veteran, who used to coach Tiger Woods, for assistance. He said: “I met Butch when I was 14 years old, so we've always had a good relationship. If there's one guy that I want to go and get a second opinion from, it's him.
“I think just after The Players and just sort of struggling through that Florida Swing with my swing and with some of the misses I was having with my irons, I just thought to myself I'm obviously missing something here and I just would love to go and get a second opinion and have him take a look, a second set of eyes.”
McIlroy admitted it had been a worthwhile experience, even though he was already working on some of the advice Harmon gave him. “The one thing with Butch is you go spend time with him and you're always going to feel better about yourself at the end of it whether you're hitting it better or not,” he said. “He's sort of half golf coach, half psychologist in a way.
“It's fun to go out there, I went and spent probably four hours with him in Vegas. He said a couple of things to me that resonated. It's the same stuff that I've been trying to do with my coach Michael, but he sort of just said it in a different way that maybe hit home with me a little bit more.
"It was a really worthwhile trip and I feel like I've done some good work after that. As I said, this is a good week to see where that work has gotten me."
McIlroy’s run of results on the PGA Tour this year reads T66, T24, T21, T21, T19, but while he admitted he would have preferred stronger performances, he said his decision to fill his schedule had been justified as it had helped him to identify the problems that needed ironing out.
He explained: “I think it's been good. The results haven't been what I would have liked, but I've learnt a lot about where my game is.
“If I hadn't had played as much over the past couple of months, I maybe wouldn't have started going down this path that I'm on and just sort of trying to clean up the technique a little bit. I'm working on a couple of slightly different things than I was working on before.”
McIlroy is in a group with Rickie Fowler and Tommy Fleetwood at the Valero Texas Open, with an opening round tee time of 8.53am EDT (1.53pm BST).
