Leadbetter: "Technically, even with Rory at his best, you can nitpick"

Rory McIlroy loses one right during round two of the 142th Open Championship at Muirfield. Picture Eoin Clarke www.golffile.ieCoach David Leadbetter believes he can improve Rory McIlroy’s much-admired swing.

“Technically, even with Rory at his best, you can nitpick and find a couple of things,” he told BBC Radio Five Live. “To me, his hands tend to work outside on the way back and he drops the club down on the way back down.

“The problem is how you fix the club coming too far inside. You can see he’s hit some huge hooks at times, we saw that at Augusta a couple of years ago when his problems started on the back nine.

“But the thing I love about his golf swing is the free flow. Great rhythm, we know, can cover up a few ills in the swing, so obviously in his state of mind right now the flaws are probably going to come out a little bit more.

“When he’s in a great frame of mind, and his timing’s great I don’t think he’s going to have a problem but I suppose from a technical standpoint you’d like to see the hands working the club back, where the clubhead stays outside the hands a bit more and get the club a little bit more in front of him because he looks like he finds it hard to hit a fade, which is not a great situation to be in. So there’s a couple of little things.”

Asked if he thought McIlroy could turn his game around in the short term, Leadbetter said: “I think he’s got to unmuddle his mind. His mind right now is scrambled and I think he’s got so much going on behind the scenes he just needs to be able to get out and play golf and forget everything else.”