{"id":604347,"date":"2026-04-13T15:30:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T15:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/604347\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T15:30:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T15:30:14","slug":"heres-what-rory-mcilroy-figured-out-during-his-late-night-range-session-australian-golf-digest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/604347\/","title":{"rendered":"Here’s what Rory McIlroy figured out during his late night range session \u2013 Australian Golf Digest"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rory McIlroy lost control of his golf swing on Saturday at Augusta National. I wrote that evening that the only way he\u2019d win the 2026 Masters was if he figured out a way to get it back.<\/p>\n

Shortly after he finished his round, he went straight to the driving range and did exactly that.<\/p>\n

Draped in a green jacket 24 hours later, McIlroy explained what he found out.<\/p>\n

The Problem \"Masters<\/p>\n

[Photo: Adam Glanzman]<\/p>\n

Rory started missing shots to the left with alarming frequency during his third round. With his driver, it was alternating blocks and uncontrollable overdraws.<\/p>\n

With his irons, they were more like pulls.<\/p>\n

Related: Masters 2026: Rory McIlroy rebounds to collect second consecutive green jacket<\/a><\/p>\n

It was the product of McIlroy\u2019s spin axis turning negative for the first time of the week, meaning his clubface was more closed than it had been. This, combined with a club path that was also moving too far out to the right, was causing him a world of trouble. His swing was moving right, his hands were shutting down the clubface and pointing it left, and the results weren\u2019t good.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy path was just getting a little bit too far to the right with every club in the bag. So I was just hitting too much of a draw. Then, when the path is coming from that far inside, if you don\u2019t keep your body moving at all, the ball is just going to go dead left.\u201d<\/p>\n

How he fixed it \"Masters<\/p>\n

[Photo: J.D. Cuban]<\/p>\n

The goal was to get the clubface a little more open and to swing a little more left.<\/p>\n

The way Rory did this was simple:<\/p>\n

\u201cI focused on hitting like quite a few cut shots, focused on really trying to open up my lower body through impact. When I do that, it helps me stabilise the club face and start the ball more on line with more of a neutral flight.\u201d<\/p>\n

By feeling like he was opening up his lower body, he was preventing his hands from taking over.<\/p>\n

And by practising hitting more cut shots, he was pulling his swing direction more to the left.<\/p>\n

The results were immediate: The spin axis of Rory\u2019s shots shifted from about -1 degree in his morning range session to -0.28 degrees during his evening session. The next morning was almost identical: -0.3 degrees.<\/p>\n

His goal on Saturday was to neutralise his ball flight. The numbers prove he did.<\/p>\n

His goal on Sunday was to slip on the green jacket. He did that, too.<\/p>\n

CLICK HERE FOR FULL\u00a0GOLF DIGEST\u00a0MASTERS COVERAGE<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy lost control of his golf swing on Saturday at Augusta National. I wrote that evening that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":604348,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[4225,64,198826,63,294253,755,36989,8463,36416,258131,1747,756,294254,85,294255],"class_list":{"0":"post-604347","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-article","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-augusta-national","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-ball-flight","13":"tag-golf","14":"tag-golf-instruction","15":"tag-golf-swing","16":"tag-how-to","17":"tag-masters-2026","18":"tag-pga-tour","19":"tag-rory-mcilroy","20":"tag-spin-axis","21":"tag-sports","22":"tag-swing-analysis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}