You wouldn’t have necessarily picked Northern Ireland as the lab to create one of the greatest drivers of the golf ball of all time. But in retrospect it makes sense.
Rory McIlroy’s game doesn’t resemble the stereotypical wind-formed, UK-style game that we’ve rightly or wrongly come to assume from these players. He doesn’t hit low, navigating, left-to-right runners, like Colin Montgomerie or McIlroy’s closest friend on tour, Shane Lowry.
McIlroy launches high draws that sail to the moon—he’s got one of the highest apexes on tour at more than 120 feet.
His stock high-draw ball flight is probably the product of some unique circumstances: He grew up under the watchful eye of a very good coach in Michael Bannon, in the specific moment the golf industry realized how important distance was, and during an era where everyone was getting really good at measuring it via TrackMan and other ball-trackers. All that, plus a generational amount of talent, and you get a historic driver of the ball.
What’s interesting and underrated about McIlroy’s ability off the tee is how much he moves the ball around. The data below is from Rick Gehman’s Run Rick Good website.
