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Rory McIlroy has taken a leaf out of Charl Schwartzel’s book in heeding the advice of Jack Nicklaus as he seeks his first win in a major.
South African Schwartzel revealed at Augusta, where he won in April, that advice from the record 18-time major champion had been a key element leading up to his triumph.
And after a firing a scintillating six-under 65 to take a three-stroke lead in the first round of the US Open at Congressional on Thursday, McIlroy said that he also had been helped by some words of wisdom from the Golden Bear.
“He is all about the majors,” said the 22-yar-old Ulsterman, who led by four strokes going into the last round at Augusta only to collapse with a nightmare 80 opening the way for Schwartzel to win.
The pair caught up at the Nicklaus-hosted Memorial tournament several weeks after the Masters.
“We just had a laugh and a joke about it,” said McIlroy.
“He said to me, ‘I’m expecting big things from you.’ It’s a nice pressure to have knowing that the greatest player ever at the moment thinks that you’re going to do pretty good.
“He has given me a little bit of advice. I’ve spent a bit of time with him over the past couple of years.
“He emphasised so much to me about not making mistakes. That was his big thing. He said people lost a lot more majors and gave them to him than he actually won. It was a good piece of advice to have.”
It has been such bouts of inconsistency that have dogged the ultra-talented McIlroy to date in his young career when trying to close in on a win in the majors.
Last year at the British Open in St Andrews, he equalled the lowest score ever in a major with a 63, only to balloon to an 80 the following day when the wind got up. Then came the Masters drama in April.
That had been a tough blow to take, he agreed, but what was important was to understand what went wrong in order not to make the same mistakes the next time the pressure was on him.
“I think you definitely have to analyse the parts that you want to do better,” he said.
“But I stopped thinking about it a week after. You really try and pick it apart and pick things out that you could have done better, but after you do that and you’re happy with everything that you’ve sort of taken from it, then you’ve just got to move on.”