Brad Faxon has defended Rory McIlroy following another year without a Major victory for the 34-year-old.
Faxon was renowned for his prowess on the greens in a PGA Tour career that saw eight wins. He is now McIlroy’s putting coach, and, in an interview on The Golf Channel's Golf Today show, he defended the the four-time Major winner's recent putting form after he finished T6 in The Open having gone into the tournament on the back of a win in an epic Genesis Scottish Open.
He said: “The noise that he gets. You know, he had just won the Scottish Open which sometimes could add more pressure to play the next week, certainly in Rory’s respect, puts more pressure on him, he’s obvious favourite to win there.
“He didn’t have a great putting couple of days but he had a great final round and a great putting week and you know, when Rory McIlroy finishes fifth in a Major, tied for sixth in a Major, the world is going to end according to some of the media.
“The guy is a hell of a player. He hasn’t finished out of the top 10 in a tournament it seems like the last seven events. He’s played very well in Majors except for The Masters this year.”
Faxon then explained why, in his opinion, some of the criticism of McIlroy’s game has overstepped the mark. He said: “It bugs me to no end, and what particularly bugs me, and I hope whoever posted this one is listening now, because when other instructors want to criticise Rory’s stroke or Rory or potentially me, when they don’t know anything about how a player thinks and what motivates them, what drives them, it’s beyond reproach.
Faxon also said McIlroy’s runner-up finish in June’s US Open at Los Angeles Country Club would have been enough to win the tournament on most other occasions.
He explained: “He knows the history of golf well enough to know that his second-place score at the US Open LACC would have won a lot of other US Opens, maybe every other one except for Koepka’s at Erin Hills, and the great play of Wyndham Clark, the chip shots that he made on the back nine to get up and down.
“Sometimes those things get stolen away from a player and Rory really didn’t have to hang his head on anything there and this is going to make him come out even stronger and better in my opinion.”
After The Open, McIlroy admitted that his putting had let him down at times: “I missed a few putts yesterday," he said. "Felt like I putted a bit better today. It was just hard. I needed to go out and shoot something 63, 64-ish, but really hard to do that in those conditions.”
However, he remained optimistic about the future, even though he will head into next year without a Major win in a decade. He said: “I think about trying to go and win a fourth FedEx Cup in a couple weeks' time, go try and win a fifth Race to Dubai, go and win a fifth Ryder Cup. I just keep looking forward.”
