Tag: Michael Bannon

Is Rory McIlroy working with legendary instructor Butch Harmon? This is what we know

McIlroy has been coached for nearly all of his career by Northern Ireland-based Michale Bannon.

Does Rory McIlroy have a new swing coach?

Reports began circulating on Wednesday based off a social media post by a journalist, who covers other sports but not golf, that McIlroy has begun working with famed teacher Butch Harmon.

Golfweek can confirm that McIlroy took a lesson from Harmon a week ago in Las Vegas, but that doesn’t mean he’s parted ways with his longtime coach Michael Bannon and is now working with Harmon, the son of 1948 Masters champion Claude Harmon.

Speaking on the “I Can Fly” podcast, McIlroy said that he took a lesson with Harmon on March 27.

“I went last week to see Butch Harmon for a golf lesson. I’ve seen him over the years, like once every few years I’ll say, ‘Hey, Butch, can I come see you and you can take a look and see what you think.’”

On the podcast, McIlroy, 34, recounts that as he was leaving for the airport, his three-year-old daughter Poppy asked him, “Dada, where are you going?”

McIlroy said he was going for a golf lesson, which drew this classic kids say the darnedest thing response: “She said, ‘Dada, you already know how to play golf,’” McIlroy said. “That’s probably the best piece of advice I’ve gotten in the last three years.”

The 80-year-old Harmon, who coached the likes of Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els and Greg Norman during the prime of their careers, retired from traveling to PGA Tour events but still works with the likes of Rickie Fowler and Maverick McNealy, who visit him at his Las Vegas facility.

McIlroy has been coached for nearly all of his career by Bannon, who is based in Northern Ireland and travels to the U.S. to work with McIlroy when needed. McIlroy spent a brief stint with Pete Cowen in 2021 ahead of the Masters that year but returned to Bannon several months later.

McIlroy won the DP World Tour’s Dubai Desert Classic in January, but has failed to record a top-10 finish this season on the PGA Tour. If he fails to do so this week in San Antonio at the Valero Texas Open, it will mark the first time he’s headed into the Masters without one since 2010.

McIlroy’s iron game has been a point of emphasis of late. He has slipped from eighth in Strokes Gained: Approach the Green (+0.721) last season to 119th in the category this season (-0.176).

McIlroy needs to win the Masters to become just the sixth golfer – and first since Woods – to complete the career Grand Slam. The Masters begins on April 11.

On Wednesday, prior to the Valero Texas Open, McIlroy confirmed that he did spend time with Harmon in Las Vegas, a recurring theme throughout his career.

“I met Butch when I was 14 years old, so we’ve always had a good relationship. If there’s one guy that I want to go and get a second opinion from, it’s him. Yeah, I think just after The Players, I was just sort of struggling through that Florida Swing with my swing and with some of the misses I was having with my irons, I just thought to myself I’m obviously missing something here and I just would love to go and get a second opinion and have him take a look, a second set of eyes,” McIlroy said.

“The one thing with Butch is you go spend time with him and you’re always going to feel better about yourself at the end of it whether you’re hitting it better or not. He’s sort of half golf coach, half psychologist in a way,” McIlroy said. “It’s fun to go out there, I went and spent probably four hours with him in Vegas. He said a couple of things to me that resonated. It’s the same stuff that I’ve been trying to do with my coach Michael, but he sort of just said it in a different way that maybe hit home with me a little bit more.

“Yeah, it was a really worthwhile trip and I feel like I’ve done some good work after that. As I said, this is a good week to see where that work has gotten me.”

Golfweek’s Tim Schmitt contributed to this report.

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Rory McIlroy’s recent realization could be first step in returning to the top of the golf world

“For the last few months I was maybe trying to be someone else to try and get better, and I sort of realized that being me is enough.”

One year, six months, and six days. That was the winless drought Rory McIlroy broke at the Wells Fargo Championship back in May, his first triumph since becoming a father – insert perspective joke here.

Fast-forward five months and McIlroy once again lifted a trophy at the CJ Cup, played at The Summit Club in Las Vegas. This win, much like the one at Quail Hollow, was unexpected.

The last time we saw McIlroy was at Whistling Straits where he lost three of four matches at the 43rd Ryder Cup, and seemed to be treading water. He opened the week in Wisconsin with two losses on Friday, the first time he’s lost two matches on the same day in his Ryder Cup career. He’d be benched for Saturday’s morning session before losing once again in afternoon  Four-ball.

That night, McIlroy wanted nothing to do with golf.

“I didn’t want to see golf again until 2022,” he said.

McIlroy was the first match out Sunday morning, playing against gold-medal winner Xander Schauffele. He entered that match with a different mindset. “I went out there and I won my point by doing whatever I could. I wasn’t trying to be perfect,” McIlroy said. “I wasn’t trying to hit shots that I wasn’t comfortable hitting, I just went out there to try to win my match and I did.”

Being himself, McIlroy earned a point for Europe with a 3-and-2 win.

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Over the last year, we’ve seen McIlroy make changes, highlighted by the pursuit for more distance after Bryson DeChambeau’s win at Winged Foot. McIlroy, for context, has ranked inside the top five in driving distance on Tour since 2017, and is widely considered one of the best drivers of the golf ball in the history of the game.

Back in March it was reported McIlroy was working with Pete Cowen, while never breaking communication with his long time swing coach, Michael Bannon. Cowen was brought in to work on McIlroy’s wedge game, but more importantly to help the Northern Irishman better understand his swing allowing him to adjust on the fly during the course of a round.

“Where I think Pete is out on Tour enough to sort of give me maybe feels that I can play with and then stuff that I can work on the range.” McIlroy said during WGC Dell Technologies Match Play week back in March. “As everyone knows, it’s so hard to go out on the golf course and think so much about your golf swing.

“You need to be able to let that go and just be able to play shots. But if you have a couple little feels in there, it can help, and that’s sort of the reason that I’ve went down this road.”

Their early relationship showed little-to-no results with missed cuts at the Players (as the defending champion), and Masters. However, his very next start would force McIlroy to find some more room in the trophy case. After his win at the Wells Fargo, McIlroy’s game was good enough for six top 20s in his last eight Tour starts of the season (Olympics included), but never really had a chance to win.

Now, we’re here.

A realization that Rory being Rory is good enough to win, a fact seemingly known by everyone in the game expect McIlroy.

“I think for the last few months I was maybe trying to be someone else to try and get better, and I sort of realized that being me is enough, and I can do things like this.”

The return to his roots may be a result of another coaching change, as McIlroy reportedly returned to the sole guidance of Bannon as of the conclusion of the Ryder Cup.

A confident McIlroy is a scary sight for the rest of the PGA Tour. If he truly embraces his game being not only good enough to win, but good enough to return him to best player in the world status, his notorious bouncing-stride will become common-place Sunday afternoons.

“I’m capable of winning a lot of events on the PGA Tour and being the best player in the world.”

We’ll see McIlroy again in a few weeks, as he’s joined the star-studded field in Albany, The Bahamas for Tiger Woods’ Hero World Challenge.

With his recent form, it’s important to note: Only 169 days until the opening round of the Masters.

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