Ian Poulter believes the media should tone down their criticism of reigning US PGA Championship champion Rory McIlroy on the eve of the final Major of the season.
Rory McIlroy, defending champion:“First and foremost, I just haven’t been swinging it the best this year. I got into a couple bad habits with my golf swing, and it’s just taken my a little bit longer to get out of them and obviously when you’re fighting that so much, it’s hard to play the golf that I want to play, which is fluid, which is free-flowing, I guess. That’s the way I play my best, you know, trying to work on my swing so much this year has not allowed me to do that, just because I’ve been trying to get the club in the right position to enable me to hit the shots that I know I can play. So there’s been that, and I guess just every time you play and you don’t play well, it sort of chips away at your confidence a little bit, and it’s just about building that back up. But, you know, I’m sitting here as confident as I have been all year, so I’m looking forward to getting going this week.”
Ian Poulter: (On Rory McIlroy)“Yeah, give him a break. I mean, I guess in the outside world, there’s been obviously, there’s been a lot of talk obviously of Rory, world number one, two Majors at a very early age, everybody expects Rory to continue to win big tournaments, and he will. Obviously the fact of signing a big endorsement deal and changing equipment manufacturers come under a lot of scrutiny, as well. So he’s had a lot of extra added pressure to go out there and play golf and, you know, I think sometimes we forget how young he is and what he’s been able to achieve at a very early age. So the second he feels comfortable again, whether that’s with his swing or equipment or whatever it is, then, you know, Rory will be winning golf tournaments.”
