– In today's video we've
got the one and only Rory McIlroy to share his driving secrets. And make sure you watch
the end of the video so you can find out how to win a brand new tailor-made Stealth driver. (hitting golf ball) Didn't know he's gonna hit that then. That was really good. (laughs) – So welcome to "Me and My Golf". Now if you're new to the channel and you wanna improve your game, make sure you hit the subscribe button and hit that bell to never miss a video. – Rory, how's it going? – How you doing?
– Good to see you.
– Great to see you, Rory – Yeah, you too. – As always, thanks for joining us. – Pleasure. – We have to talk about driving, you know. I will be careful how I say this. We think that Rory is probably
the best driver in the world but DJ's sitting right over there. (laughing) So we have to be a little bit careful. – He's better than DJ. (laughing) – But we wanna pick your brains
on the driver, obviously. So, when you go to warm up, either play a tournament
just play a normal game, how do you calibrate your driver? What do you do before you warm up, that's really important to
you that they can learn from? – Yeah so I think, um,
set up fundamentals.
I mean, I think, you know,
we talked about before, just before getting on here, the driver is a different animal than the rest of the bike, right? I mean you've got a tee, the ball, sitting a couple inches off the ground. It's just, it's just different. So I think the setup has
to be a little different and you just have to get
comfortable with, you know, putting that ball up
all up in your stunts. And, you know, trying to head up on it and all that sort of stuff. So, calibration wise
before I go out to play, I just wanna try to get comfortable with the setup of the driver, in terms of how I'm standing to it. And then just get it, just get striking it well, just make sure you're getting it out of the middle of the clubface. And then from there, if
you're a little more advanced and want to try to hit
some draws and fades and try to imagine some of the holes that you're about to
play out on the course, then you can do that too.
But you know, with these
modern tech, you know, these modern drivers
and modern technology, if you start hitting it out
of the center of the face, it's going to go pretty well. – Should we hit one, shall we? – Yeah sure.
– Sure, sure. – Let's get this going
so I'm just gonna get it. – All right. Normal drive? – Normal drive.
– Just go straight down- – to that flag. – Normal drive. (hitting golf ball) – It's always very different
watching your driver, Rory, to anybody else's 'cause
it's just launches.
It launches so different to
a lot of others, isn't it? You hit upon it a lot. It's a beautiful shot. – Yeah, and I think as well, I mean, we're playing a hole today that's down wind, so sort of naturally
want to get it up there just to get as much out of
the wind as possible as. – 181 ball speed. – 181. – Okay, that's all right. – That's jet lag.
– Let's have another one and then we'll get into. – You can get better than that. – I can, 100 percent. – Yeah, he definitely
got better than that. That's a beauty again. High, little right to left. Beautiful shot. – 187 ball speeds. – Really?
– 187 ball speed. That's not bad. – That is making me feel bad. So the majority of the,
the viewers on this, don't hit it like that. They would hit it generally with a little bit of left
to right, maybe a slice.
How would you purposely make, let's say you want it to shape it a little more right to left. What would you do in setup? Thoughts, feelings. Just talk us through how
you do that and create that. – Yeah. Yeah, so the draw is obviously something that comes pretty naturally to me, so I don't have to think about it as much, but if I'm having to describe what I do, I mean, I, you, you get,
you get behind the ball and you try to visualize where
you want the ball to start, where you want it to finish, try to visualize the
curve of that golf ball.
And then for me, trying to hit a draw, like obviously aiming is
important and all that. So you're really trying to get, you know, you want to make sure
that where you're aiming is where you want the
ball to, to really start. And then what I try to do from here, I try to not do, when I try to draw it or overdraw it, or I think the average
golfer tries to draw it. They whip the club inside because they want to attack
the ball from the inside. But I think that creates more problems than solutions, I guess. So for me, even, I try
to really try to think about keeping that club in
front of me on the way back, because then naturally if you
do keep it in front of you and you want to hit a draw, it'll naturally just
want to come down inside to then attack the ball
and hit the, hit the draw. Sometimes I think if you whip it inside, like, you can't come. – Yeah.
– You can't, you sort the reverse and then you miss it even further right.
– Yeah. – So I think for me, I've always, and I get into that tendency of getting the club behind me early for, for trying to hit
a draw with the driver. But the more you can try
to keep it front of you, the more it's wanting to shallow for you. And then you can attack it from the inside and hit that draw. So for me, I feel I keep it in
front of me on the way back, and then, I almost feel like
I let this right shoulder like relax and that sorta just keeps it, just keeps it in behind me here.
– Dropping shallow. – And then, and then clear and hit it. – I see.
– Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's pretty simple, isn't it really? And I just, you know, the
more we talk about it. – It is pretty simple
when it looks that good. – It is simple, yeah. – So up the right. Keep it in front. – I mean, that was pure. Definitely start, again
started right at target, working his way back to
long way down there as well.
– Very nice. Very nice. Okay, we have some
questions from our members. Let's go through these. Evan Landry. Ha, might be what you just said, actually. What's the most common
mistake you see amateurs make, excluding that one? – Yeah, excluding that one. I think effect of golf
sometimes can be pretty boring or in people's minds, it can be boring. Playing the shot you
knew that you can play or that you can pull off
at least 8 times out of 10. I think I see, I see amateurs so much trying to play outside
of their comfort zone and trying to take on shots
that they think they should hit instead of keeping the ball in play, you know, managing their
games a little better and that will produce lower scores. And yeah, sometimes it's
fun to take on the shots that you might not be able to pull off, but I think it's even more fun
to just shoot better scores. You know? So I think that it's a, there's so many other parts
of the game that you can, you can do really well at.
And, and yeah, just managing
your game a little better. If I were to caddy for
like an average player, I really feel like I
could take 5 to 10 shots off a round very easily. – Yeah, yeah. – That's something we say
all the time, isn't it? Just by getting to make
the right decisions, the right club, the right hit, the right sort of process and strategy. I'm sure a lot of you
guys will relate to that. Are you trying to play and
put yourself in a position where you can't really play that, hit the like if you can relate
to what Rory says there. – Understanding your limitations is huge. – Exactly.
– Huge. – Yeah, massive. – So the next one, I actually had a few people and it's Lee Thompson,
Anthony Hearnd, Jeff Davis. How do you keep focused in a round when something is going wrong? – Yeah. Yeah, we just talked about this. – We really just talked about it. – Sometimes it's hard. Sometimes it's hard when
things don't go right, and don't go your way.
You know, it seems so cliche, but just focus on the next shot. Focus on, um… – Do you have a skill for that though? Is there, is there a way that you, cause you're right, you, you know, you miss
a putt, your three putt, you're like red mist, how do you then go, "Great, now what I need
to do next is this." – You set yourself these little mini goals throughout the round. So like, if I, say you
got off to a bad start, let's say you're like one over
through four, for example, say, okay, I want to be
one under through nine. I'm going to play the next
five holes in two under par. So, okay, how do you do that? How do you methodically
get your way around those next five holes and say, okay, well I've got a birdie
chance here and there and you don't want to think too far ahead and you want to keep, but I think if you just give
yourself that little mini goal, it sort of resets your sort of playing.
I think you're always
trying to recalibrate in a round of golf. Like even like, even if it's
say it's going really well, and you're like seven under through 12, and you're like, you know, all of a sudden 59 coming in your head, whatever it is be say, okay, no, I just, I'm going to try to play the next, I'm going to try to
play the next six holes in three under par. You know, just try to keep it like simple and sorta try to downplay
the situation, a touch. – I think it's interesting as well, what you're talking about, Rory. The viewers at home, the questions about what
happens if it goes wrong, it's also what happens if it's going well.
It's like what do we
do if it's going well? And like you said, it's like treating it like, well, let's park this three under par or this one over par or two
over par for the amateurs. And it's all in the past now. Well, what can I do now
on these next three holes? – Exactly. – It's, it's a, it's
an interesting question because we need to think about that because hopefully we're going
to get in that situation sometime as well. – Yeah.
– Right. – Okay, right, let's
talk about also something that's probably overlooked
with a lot of amateur golfers, pre-shot routine. – Yep. – You've talked recently about how maybe you've got a little bit down that sort of technical side and
trying to get the swing to produce the results. And then you've gone back
more to maybe letting the, the shot, just produce the motion, talk us through your pre-shot
routine, the process, what you go through to
really help the guys maybe come up with something they can use.
– Yeah. So I think the one thing
that's helped me a lot over the last few months is especially like, even you, you have like say this tee box, it's not aiming you
exactly down in the middle of the fairway, right. It's sorta aiming you over to the right and you're having to aim across it, so I've been using an intermediate target pretty, pretty much every, every shot, especially tee shots. So if going up the, at the pin there, like I'm, I'm much better
at aiming at a target that's four feet in front of me, instead of trying to aim at
something that's 300 yards away.
– That makes sense. – Yeah, so, you know,
I'll, I'll try to pick a little speck of, you know, if I'm trying to hit like
a pretty neutral shot, a little speck of sand up there. And I just try to, you know, I, aim my club face at it and then I just try to get
my body parallel to that. And I know then, that even if a tee shot
feels uncomfortable, you know, you're aiming in the right spot. – Yeah. – You know, and a lot of
courses on tour and stuff you have to do that, they try and play tricks with you and have the tee box
aimed at different angles.
Yeah, so, and then it's all, it's always, I feel like it's always awkward, aiming across the tee box. For some reason, I always feel like I am aiming way too far left. It just that's how it feels to me. But then if you just use
that intermediate target and trust that, then at least you know
you're aiming properly. And like you guys know, like if you've, you've basically won half
the battle, if you're, if you're standing correctly and then from there, you know, it just makes the rest of
it just a little bit easier.
There's a great, there's a great video of Jack Nicholas, I think it's like the 1975 Masters, and it's his second shot
into 15 on the last day. And he used an intermediate
spot quite a lot. So he would, all he did was, was focused
on the intermediate spot. And then he'd look at that, he'd look at the target,
look back at the spot, look at the ball. Target, spot, ball. And then it's just really, really cool to see. Like arguably the best player ever using that such a simple technique to make sure that he's aiming
the right the right way. And that's a big part
of the pre-shot routine.
– But most amateurs don't even come back and stand on the target line. What Rory is doing here is putting himself on the target line, so he's able to see and feel exactly where he needs to walk in and then pick that spot out. That's a key thing that you guys can do. – Yeah. – And then what's next? I mean, you've done your visualization. – Yeah, so I've done
my visualization first. So again, if it, if it
was a pretty neutral shot I wanted to play, I'd try to visualize that shot, you know, go pick my intermediate spot and then just try to let the, the swing sort of respond to
that picture that I'm seeing. I think it's just about, the more visual you can be, and the more you can even see yourself, like even if you're behind the ball, see yourself in there hitting that shot. – Yeah, yeah. – That gives you so much confidence to, to stand up there and say, okay, well, you know, I've seen it and I can, you know, try to do it.
– I think we need to hit
a high bomb, don't we? – Yeah.
– I mean it sounds weird. I mean we're saying hit a high bomb. The only reason I'm saying is because this is a Miramar golf ball. – Oh this has to be a big one. – This is the first time this ball is ever going to make it over 250 I think. – Find the middle of the face as well. – I'm going to have to run at this one. – So what do you go through
when you do this actually? Let's just go, are there
any thoughts, any feels? – Yeah, so like wider stance. This is something that
you probably know from, from the gym and stuff, but I try to intraabdominal pressure. I try to really like, like, just feel like I've got a real solid, like real solid core to hit from. So I'm in there, I'm shuffling my feet.
I've got my core nice and strong. And I'm like, almost like trying to get
my nervous system excited, to then bring it back. It's a bit like, Bryson
talks about this a lot, but I try to do that. And then if anything, what I try to do, like I try and wind up to
the top as much as possible. I try to feel like I
initiate my down swing and like give everything, my right pocket or my right hip, just firing towards the ball. – Okay. – I am a very right side, dominant feel. Like all, all my fields of my swing are more right-sided than left sided. So I just try to get
this going at the ball as much as possible. And that seems to clear to then create that sort of whip through and create a bit extra speed. So we'll see, okay. – Waking the radar and we are good to go. – Okay. This could go off the planet, but I'm going to hit it hard.
– Doesn't matter. (laughing) – Recoiled everything. I mean, look at that. I'll tell you when that hits the ground. – It's off the planet, but it's off the planet dead straight. – It's just hit the ground. – It's a touch off the bottom. – That's amazing, 6.7 up. – Yeah, yeah. – So that was really good. That was really good. Yep, okay. 189 ball speeds. – There you go.
– So you didn't get the 190, but 189 ball speeds and
just the 345 yards carry. That's okay. – Yeah, that's all right, find the middle. – You found the middle as well! – Exactly, yeah. Left with the flicker to the green there. – Down the middle. Rory, look thank you so much. – Cheers. – Really, really good to see you. It's amazing to share
some of that great stuff with the viewers. And guys, look, if you want to win one of the brand new Stealth drivers, which is amazing by the way, all you need to do is
like, comment and subscribe to the channel and we're going to choose
a winner very soon. Thanks again for watching. And we'll see soon..