Rory McIlroy has been noticing improvements in his game ahead of his trip to The Open next weekend.
A tricky outing at the Irish Open led to the 29-year-old finishing tied for 28th position at Ballyliffin, as a frustrating season continued.
Despite capturing his first event victory since 2016 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational in March, a chance at the career Grand Slam went down the pan at Augusta as the Irishman failed to finish the week in good touch, eventually finishing tied for 5th.
After failing to make the cut at the US Open, McIlroy had been hoping to bounce back with strong performances on the PGA and European Tours.
Besides failing to finish on the top of the pile, McIlroy does believe significant improvements have been made in his game.
Speaking of his performance in Ireland, the four-time major champion said:
There were improvements over the weekend,
I hit the ball the best I’ve hit it on Thursday and I felt like I sort of kept it up.
It maybe wasn’t quite as good the last three days, but I putted a lot better today. I felt a lot better about it so that was great. Sometimes when I get too square with my feet, my upper body can get a little bit left and every putt I was missing was to the left.
With Carnoustie looming, McIlroy felt good about his chances at winning a second Open Championship in his relatively young career:
I feel like I’ve made some improvements over the last couple of days on that and at least I know I’m trending in the right direction heading into the Open Championship.
A win in Scotland would mark a fifth career major for McIlroy and would propel him up the world rankings, where he currently sits eighth.
