When he is playing his best, no one on the planet can drive the golf ball like Rory McIlroy. He may be frustrating to watch with a wedge in his hand, but nobody can make driving the ball far look so effortless and majestic. In the video below PGA Professional Jack Backhouse dives into a Rory McIlroy golf swing analysis to see how you can drive the ball like Rory.
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Set-Up
Athletic is the only word needed to describe Rory’s address position. With McIlroy not being particularly tall, he stands up to the ball in quite an upright posture, but is very balanced with his backside over his heels and the weight in the middle of his feet.
He has a very strong left hand grip which might help him draw the golf ball, but also almost a weak right hand which may just neutralise him. This definetley helps him hit the golf ball as high as he does.
His set up is all fairly textbook, not really much to pass comment on other than he just looks ready to launch the ball. This is something we all could emulate when trying to hit big drives.
Backswing
McIlroy starts his backswing with a 2 inch hip bump away from the target. Here he loads his right leg quite early, but then recentres his hips whilst still in his backswing phase. recentring your hips as early as McIlroy does creates a huge stretch from the left shoulder to the left hip, which is one of the contributing factors to him hitting the ball so far.
From down the line we see McIlroy with quite a flat shoulder turn and a very flat left arm plane. This allows him to get the club well behind him, effectively making his swing longer in the process. This also makes it easier to hit the golf ball from the inside and play a draw.
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Golfers are often worried about flat swings but this is a huge contributor to his excellent driving efficiency.
Downswing
It is in the downswing where we see more magic from McIlroy.
He continues moving his hips to wards the target until around half way into his downswing, before he starts a powerful hip rotation which slings the club down into the ball. His hips move approximately 5-6 inches towards the target on the way down which is enourmous.
From down the line we see McIlroy’s right shoulder drop and move well under the path it went back on, which shallows the shaft into the golden 90 degree shaft position, where the club shaft is 90 degrees to the spine angle.
From here the club is moving at maximum efficiency from the inside into the ball, which allows him to hit up and with an inside club path to hit a high low-spin draw shot.
Into The Finish
Even with all this power and speed, McIlroy is able to decellarate faster than imaginable to be able to finish in a poised balanced position. Rory never looks off balance because the club is always moving on the correct plane around his body, which means its never pulling him off his feet.
What can we learn?
McIlroy’s golf swing really is a thing of beauty, and there is loads that we can takeaway and emulate that will improve our own games.
- Be ready to swing hard in your address. A sloppy set up isnt a strong platform to swing from, so get athletic and ready before you start moving
- Shift your hips forwards in the backswing. This helps boost speed and strike, it might feel odd but we want the downswing to start before we have finished going back!
- Have your trail shoulder move down and under in the downswing, this will stop you being steep and will help you draw the ball like you have never before.
If you enjoyed this Rory McIlroy golf swing analysis, keep an eye out for more tour winners’ swing analysis in the future.
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