Living in the Palm Beaches has its benefits. For Rory McIlroy, one of those is the opportunity to occasionally sit down with Jack Nicklaus and talk about a variety of subjects _ not the least of which is golf.
In his pre-tournament sitdown with the media Wednesday prior to the start of the 2014 U.S. Open at Pinehurst, McIlroy revealed that he spent two hours in Nicklaus’ North Palm Beach office last Wednesday “and had a great conversation about everything: business, golf brand, the whole lot.”
Pressed for details, McIlroy said he had had lunch with Nicklaus during the Memorial Tournament at Muirfield Village a few weeks earlier and expressed a desire to spend more time with him. The two arranged to meet for dinner at Nicklaus’ house last Tuesday, but McIlroy spent Monday and Tuesday at Pinehurst No. 2 and got home too late.
“I blew him off, actually, to be honest,” he said sheepishly.
But he called the next morning and headed over.
“He’s been really generous with his time with me,” McIlroy said. “Offered any sort of advice that I wanted or needed. He’s been great. And to have that at my disposal _ I mean, it has to be an advantage in some way. So it’s been great.”
Asked if he just calls Nicklaus and asks if he can stop by, McIlroy said, “I mean, I don’t ring him up, I ring his secretary up and say, ‘I’d like to schedule a meeting please. But it’s been great to spend some time with him and I feel like I’ve got a really good rapport with him.”
McIlroy said one of the questions Nicklaus asked was how he could go from shooting 63 one day to 78 the next, which is what happened at Memorial. He finished with rounds of 69 and 72 to tie for 15th in what was his most recent start prior to this week.
“I said, ‘I wasn’t meaning to, Jack. I’m trying not to.’ He said to me he was never afraid to change things up in the middle of a round if it wasn’t going well, (if) he felt he wasn’t swinging well. He’d make a swing change right then and there. The mental strength to be able to do that and trust what you’re doing.”
He added, “But I had a great conversation with Jack … it was great to spend some time with him. Some of the things he said to me I’m really thinking about, going into this week. He was a great U.S. Open player and hopefully some of those little nuggets of wisdom that he passed on might help me this week.”
