McIlroy: Consistency not everything

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  • June 17, 2015

As long as he keeps winning majors and big tournaments, Rory McIlroy says he is not concerned by a lack of consistency.

The Northern Irishman is the joint favourite with Paddy Power to walk away with the title this week – despite his at times indifferent form.

After two superb victories on the PGA Tour in the space of three weeks (the WGC-Cadillac Match Play and the Wells Fargo Championship) in May, McIlroy missed the cuts at both the BMW PGA Championship and the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open in his native Northern Ireland.

That lack of consistency has to some degree been characteristic of his career, but the 25-year-old insists he is not bothered by those failures, and attributed his latest missed cuts to mental fatigue at the end of five tournaments in succession.

“I obviously didn’t want to miss those two cuts in Europe, but I think that’s just the way I’m going to be,” said McIlroy, already a four-time major champion.

“I’d rather in a six-tournament period have three wins and three missed cuts than six top-10s. Volatility in golf is actually a good thing. If your good weeks are really good, it far outweighs the bad weeks.”

A lot of attention was on McIlroy’s career grand slam bid prior to the Masters, but he has been able to enjoy a quieter build-up to this week’s US Open.

“There’s not as much attention or much hype,” McIlroy added. “I can get here and just do my thing without much worry. And I guess there’s not as much on my mind about what I can achieve.

“It’s hugely important, a chance to win a second US Open and the fifth major, and that’s all important, but there was just so much hype and so much attention around Augusta. This one feels very different.”

The Holywood-born golfer has compared the Chambers Bay course to Muirfield, which hosted the Open in 2013. McIlroy missed the cut in that tournament, but is confident there will be no repeat of that.

“I’m a completely different player. I’m in a completely different place. I had no control of my golf game at that point in time and I feel like I’m pretty much in full control of it at the minute,” he added.

“I can tell you a repeat of that is definitely not going to happen. Chambers Bay plays more like a links course than some links courses. It’s so fast, so firm.

“It reminds me of 2013 at Muirfield and ’06 at Hoylake when Tiger (Woods) won. The course is getting burned out.”

At 8/1, McIlroy might just be worth a punt this week.

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