Rory McIlroy believes an aggressive approach off the tee coupled with some clever strategy around the greens could prove the perfect combination as he seeks to win a third US PGA Championship this week.<\/p>\n
McIlroy will attempt to back up his second consecutive Masters success at Augusta last month by picking up a seventh major victory over the par-70 Aronimink course in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n
His previous PGA triumphs came at Kiawah Island in 2012 and the Valhalla Golf Club in Kentucky two years later.<\/p>\n
The world number two says this week’s course is one that he likes and is “pretty similar to some PGA Championship set-ups that we’ve had recently”.<\/p>\n
“Oak Hill would be the one that comes to mind in 2023, sort of traditional north east golf, a lot of trees have been removed, big wide playing corridors off the tee, so I think if I get the driver in the groove this week I’ll have plenty of chances to make birdies,” said the Northern Ireland player.<\/p>\n
The world number two added that he expects “strategy off the tee” to be “pretty non-existent” at this week’s tournament.<\/p>\n
“It’s basically, bash driver down there and then figure it out from there. When these traditional golf courses take a lot of trees out, it makes strategy not as much of a concern off the tee.<\/p>\n
“But the greens are the main focus this week, and I think getting yourself in the right sections of the greens, making sure you leave yourself below the hole for the most part. That’s the key this week.<\/p>\n
“It’s a course where you can be super aggressive off the tee, and then there’s a little more strategy and a little more thought going into the greens.”<\/p>\n
Aronimink is the venue for a US PGA Championship for the second time. The first was 64 years ago when Gary Player earned $13,000 for the victory. The South African won a second PGA title 10 years later at Oakland Hills.<\/p>\n
The last time Aronimink hosted a PGA Tour event was in 2018 – McIlroy finished fifth, with Keegan Bradley beating Justin Rose in a play-off for the title.<\/p>\n
“I don’t think the course necessarily played the way it will play this week,” reflected McIlroy.<\/p>\n
“It was a very wet that week. It looks like there’s going to be a little bit of rain Thursday night into Friday morning.<\/p>\n
“For the most part, it should be a bit drier, which really brings out the character of the greens. The greens seem to be the big defence and the big talking point of the golf course.<\/p>\n
“If you get yourself above the hole or you start to short-side yourself, you can get yourself in some tricky spots.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy believes an aggressive approach off the tee coupled with some clever strategy around the greens could…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":640004,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":["post-640003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/640004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}