Interview: The secret to McIlroy success

Andy Lewis 01:28 02/04/2015
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  • Lift off: McIlroy says his love of training has launched his career to new levels.

    Rory McIlroy’s transformation from a prodigiously-talented teenager to one of the world’s pre-eminent sporting icons can be measured in many ways.

    At just 25 the Ulsterman is virtually peerless in the world of golf. With four majors resplendent in a cluttered trophy cabinet, his status as a great of the game has been secured way ahead of schedule.

    Next week he will seek his first Masters title and with it become just the sixth man to win all four modern majors, joining the esteemed company of Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods.

    Should McIlroy indeed depart Augusta National robed in that coveted green jacket then he will have completed the fabled career grand slam – and all within a mere eight years of striking his first tee shot in the professional ranks. Describing his rise at meteoric somehow seems inadequate.

    Indeed that progress can be measured by tournament victories; it can also be charted through his ever-growing celebrity.

    It can be gauged through prize money or his array of blue chip endorsements, particularly his association with Nike, the US sportswear behemoth who signed him to a long-term deal in January 2013 worth a reported $20 million annually to effectively usurp Woods as the face of their golf division.

    Two years on and that investment looks the safe bet it always appeared, with a maturing McIlroy ostensibly everything they would desire from a ‘Nike athlete’. And that not only applies to his golf ranking – but also his lifestyle.

    In fact one of the most tangible aspects of McIlroy’s emergence has been the striking physical metamorphosis he has experienced. In 2009 he first played Augusta National as an awkward teenager with a distinctly adolescent physique. Next week his challenge will be propelled by the raw physical power of an explosive athlete.

    McIlroy has transformed his game and his body with the help of a team that includes instructor Michael Bannon, caddie JP Fitzgerald and, especially, exercise physiologist Dr Steve McGregor.

    Nike last week released a short documentary, the first in a Nike Training series entitled ‘Inner Strength’, laying bare the secrets of his success. And here, on the eve of what he hopes will be a career-defining tournament, McIlroy talks in depth about his quest to unleash his full physical potential.

    The Masters is almost upon us – how has your training been building up ahead of that?

    Obviously it’s the first really big tournament of the year, and it’s even bigger for me this time round for a few different reasons. I think I’ve had a good build up to it.

    We try to put a lot of work into it at the start of the year, around January and February time, going through different phases of training. Endurance at the start, and then more into a strength phase, before maybe tapering off a little bit in the lead-up to the Masters.

    We still work hard the week before but then the week of the tournament we try to taper it down so that I know I’m in great shape and I know I’m ready. I’ll have done the volume, I’ll have done the workload and I’ll just be ready to go out and play.

    How much do you train in the week of a tournament?

    I’ll do my heavier sessions on Monday and Tuesday, maybe take a day off, and then do a couple of lighter ones over the course of the Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

    I’ll always give myself Sunday off just as it’s the last day of the tournament – maybe I’ll go in if I feel like some sort of warm-up session, but nothing more. So two heavier sessions and two lighter sessions.

    So let’s go back a few years to when you first turned pro – what was your training regime?

    Not a whole lot to be honest – I wasn’t really big into the gym. I did have a little bit of understanding of my body from having a physio treatment here and there, but not as much as I probably should have, or do now. So my physical training was pretty much non-existent from when I turned pro at 18 basically until I turned 21.

    I had three years when I was playing professionally on the tour, doing okay but not, I guess, maximising my potential by coming into the gym and doing the work that I need to do. I ended up having a few niggles here and there – a few little injuries which, had I let them go on longer, could have turned into serious issues that could have put me out for a while.

    So it was out of necessity that you started working more in the gym?

    Definitely out of necessity – for injury prevention more than any else. Then the more you get into it, you find yourself wanting to get stronger. You want to see what your limits are and to test your body physically.

    I really started to get into it and it became part of my lifestyle. Up to that point it hadn’t been – I’d just played golf without really training much or watching what I ate. Now, obviously, things are very different.

    Was there a moment where you’d say you just fell in love with training?

    It was when I started to notice results that I fell in love with it – the same goes for everyone, I think. It might simply be not feeling any pain when swinging a golf club, like it was for me. For other people it’s just looking in the mirror and feeling better about themselves, or tracking their numbers – lifting bigger, lifting heavier, being able to do more reps with more weight or whatever it is.

    But for me it was being able to stand up, hit 50 drives in a row and feel no pain in my back. That is what made me realise that training is something I need to do – I need to do this a lot, and if I want to prolong my career as much as I can, I need to keep doing it.

    Outside of pain, injury and so on, when was the first time you noticed or started to notice a difference in your game?

    I started to go to the gym at the end of 2010. I started to train then, and the first six months it was all foundation work. Leg stuff, corrective work and balancing out the body, and really it’s quite boring so that part was tough, especially for someone who had never been to the gym before.

    In this time I was becoming more stronger in my lower half and my core was getting more stable so it was probably six months into it that I started to notice a difference in my swing, in the way I was hitting the ball and in the positions I could get into.

    Your trainer, Dr Steve McGregor has said that when you guys first started you struggled to even balance on one leg.

    That’s right. Balance and stability was the big thing for me. I had huge amounts of mobility and flexibility – that’s never been my problem – but stability, strength and being able to control the smaller muscles were weaker. I couldn’t stand on one leg for more than 10 seconds and I couldn’t hold a plank for more than 30 seconds.

    The golfer and the guru: Rory McIlroy (r) and Dr Steve McGregor.

    Everyone has to start somewhere, I started from the very beginning and have worked my way up. It took me four years of training to get my body into the best possible shape for what I do, which ultimately is go out and play golf.

    I have no ambitions to try and squat 500 pounds like some guys do, but I do enough and I’m strong enough to control the golf club the whole way through my swing – that’s basically what I need to do.

    So what does your motivation to train boil down to?

    For me it’s the fact that training gives me the ability to do my sport the best way I can. I think that’s the motivation for me. I know that if I slip off and don’t train properly I can still go out and play golf, but I’m not going to do that as well or I’m not going to be as prepared if I don’t go to the gym.

    You want to give yourself as many advantages over the field as possible, and for me I feel that getting into the gym gives me a slight edge, making me a better player. 

    You know other guys are in the gym and you know they’re working and I don’t want to give up that half a percent to the field. It can make a huge difference – even if you feel like you’re playing well or like you’re practising well, you still want to give yourself every possible chance to win.

    How do you deal with the pressure of all eyes being on you? A lot of athletes who have upped their training find that it boosts their confidence. Is this the case for you? 

    Yes it is. I mean, I’ve always been naturally quite a confident person especially when it comes to my chosen arena, which is that golf course. That’s where I’m most comfortable, but getting into the gym and building strength has been great.

    My posture was terrible when I started, and just having better posture, standing up straight with your shoulders back and your chest out gives off the air of confidence. That’s one thing the gym has done for me – you carry yourself better, you feel good about yourself.

    Mentally it’s a great thing for you as well, as training releases a lot of good endorphins. Training has become a necessity and basically an everyday activity for me – I need to sweat at least once a day to make myself feel good.

    You said training has been a lifestyle change for you, would you even say it’s more like a hobby?

    Yes, it is a hobby. I spend so much time at the golf course and I’m out there hitting balls, I can be on the last few holes and I’m just looking forward to getting into the gym.

    Steve [Rory’s trainer] will tell me when there’s times he doesn’t want me training, like at the British Open last year. So he said that if I shot 67 or lower that day he would let me in the gym for a little bit and that kind of thing gives me a little goal to aim for, the chance to get into the gym after my round.

    Though having said that there’s definitely a love/hate thing with it – there are some weeks where I don’t want to go in and there are some weeks where I’m really into it and I just really want to go in and improve in some way.

    How about a bad day on the course, a bad round or just a bad day in general? Does the gym help on these days?

    Definitely – training helps with that, you know. If I have a bad day on the course and don’t shoot a good score or achieve what I wanted to, I get into the gym and have a really good training session that evening.

    Then you’re at dinner and you feel better, you know you’ll wake up that next morning and it’ll be a new day, and what happened during that day doesn’t linger as much. You can get all your frustration out, let it all go for the time you’re in there and usually it makes the next day a lot better.

    How much do you credit this new lifestyle with your success and as you look to the future of your playing career, how has it changed your outlook?

    Bringing Steve on board has been huge, and the education about the body he has given me has been very beneficial.

    I feel like I learn new things every day, and if this can help me get an extra two or three years out of my career, or if it helps me by one shot a week, it’s huge.

    Whether it’s to do with being more mentally focused because of training or feeling fitter and cutting out sloppy swings that come in when you’re tired at the end of a round, for me training is a necessity.

    It’s what I need to do, and I feel like getting into the gym gives me the best possible chance of going out on the golf course and performing to the best of my ability.

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