Despite not playing his best golf, Rory McIlroy finds himself inside the top 10 of the first FedEx Cup playoff event in Memphis, with the Northern Irishman firing a third round 68 to sit at nine-under and five shots back of leader, Lucas Glover.
Coming into the event, McIlroy was seen using a Scotty Cameron putter, which he had, in fact, put in his golf bag for the FedEx St. Jude Championship. However, after 36 holes, something wasn't feeling right and, after lining it up against his TaylorMade Spider X, it turned out the Scotty was slightly longer than the Spider...
"Like half an inch", responded McIlroy on Saturday when asked about the changes. "It's funny, I didn't really notice it in practice, and then once I got into competitive play, I always put my right hand on my putter first to go in and out. I just felt like where my right hand was at the top, it just felt a little too up. So I compared it to my Spider last night, it was like half an inch. It wasn't like a huge difference."
So, how did the four-time Major winner get over the fact that his putter was half-an-inch longer? Well, as all the Tour trucks had packed up and left the location, McIlroy simply asked his caddie, Harry Diamond, to get it cut down, with the Northern Irishman explaining: "Harry took it to a local golf shop and got it cut down last night for me."
He went on to add: "Harry took it to Edwin Watts, I guess, and got someone to do it. But then he got in touch with Paul from Scotty Cameron, and Paul was sort of like, it probably moved a swing weight or two, so just added a bit of weight to it this morning to try to balance it out. But felt better. There's weights in the bottom of the putter, so like tungsten weights. Just a couple of heavier ones."
The move to cut down the putter did indeed have some effect on his game. During round one, McIlroy had 28 putts, with the 34-year-old making another 28 putts on Friday.
With the putter cut down, he managed 25 putts on Saturday at TPC Southwind, three less than the previous two days, but McIlroy admitted that "I'm going to need to go out tomorrow and shoot something like Justin Rose shot this morning, like a 61, 62 to have a chance."
However, in true McIlroy style, he has confidence in his game, with the Northern Irishman adding "I feel like you break it down, four-under a nine. I feel with the way I'm hitting it, the way I'm playing, it's doable. Not saying that that's what's going to happen, but it's not out of the realms of possibility."
