Rory McIlroy’s manager, Conor Ridge believes his No. 1 world ranked client would have struggled this week had he been still using his 14 Titleist clubs in the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship.
McIlroy left new sponsor, Nike crimson faced as his new driver in managing just a dozen of 28 fairways with their much heralded new Covert driver in two days around the National course in the UAE capital.
“It’s going to take time and I’m not going to comment on the contract but he’s got to work the clubs in gradually,” said Ridge.
Conor Ridge accompanies Rory McIlroy to last year’s White House reception for visiting UK Prime Minister, David Cameron.
“It was always going to be that way, he knew that from the start. He wants to get everything in play because getting them in play and working on them is the way to get into it properly.
“Some things will be not quite right at first and some things will be perfect. A couple of things will take a few weeks to get used to.
“The reason he’s played here is because he knew he could take a couple of weeks’ testing, a couple of weeks’ practice, play a tournament and then have another four weeks to work on it again. I actually think it’s going to work out well that way.
“He won’t be concerned by this, trust me. You can’t make a change like that and just seamlessly hit the tracks straight away. It’s just not normal, you know?”
Ridge also backed-up McIlroy’s comments about his Nike Method putter and despite the double Major ditching the putter after just one round in favour of his Scotty Cameron putter and the one that helped him win two Majors.
“He was working on it Thursday and today and he was just struggling with the weight of it,” said Ridge.
“He was working on it all week and then found when he was out there yesterday that the weight just wasn’t right. Instead of playing with it today and the weighting not being what he was used to, he just said he’d put it back and do a bit more work with it over the next few weeks so that he can get it back in the bag.
“They were kind of chopping and changing with it all week, trying to get the weighting right.
“Literally yesterday, it just didn’t feel right. To be honest with you, if he’d been able to get more weight on the club overnight he would have used it today. It’s as simple as that. He’ll tell you himself.”
McIlroy is not set to compete again to he tees up in the February 20th commencing WGC – Accenture Match-Play Championship.
However with just one regular tournament in a nine-week period the thought of possibly being bundled out in the opening round of the $US 8.75m match-play event is a daunting thought for organisers.
Though Ridge indicated McIlroy is not about to add a tournament to his schedule to make up for missing the cut in Abu Dhabi.
“There’s certainly no need for him to change his schedule or anything,” said Ridge.
“He even said himself at the start of the week that it was going to be an unknown going into tournament play versus what he was doing on the range.
“To be honest, he said himself – he didn’t play well yesterday.
“And he hasn’t played well today. I think if he had 14 Titleist clubs in his bags yesterday and today, it would have been exactly the same.”
