If you want to know why Rory McIlroy is such a long driver of the ball but also a very woeful one accuracy-wise, then you only have to look at what he’s doing with his pivot.

Now, there is absolutely nothing wrong with his setup – I’ve commented on it before and how it supports my hypothesis on the address position – it’s when he gets moving that the issues begin.

First, I haven’t looked at Tour stats in some time, but even the top numbers in driving accuracy are shocking – only one player on the entire Tour managed to crack 70% in driving accuracy:

The Tour average is a horrific 58.57% – this with shoebox-sized driver heads and low-spin balls, and Rory Mac checks in even not even meeting this metric, coming in at a 157th ranking of 53.25%.

If you’re wondering why Rory hasn’t won a major in 9 years… well look at that, barely above 50% in fairways hit – that’s not going to cut it in majors when hitting the fairway is far more important than in regular events.

Contrast all of that to the balata and persimmon era, where it was much more difficult and skill-requiring to swing a golf club, yet in 1980, you have this:

… and even just a few year back, greater accuracy than the just-completed season:

This tells me that even with improving technology in club and ball production, as time passes, there is seemingly less skill in the players on Tour, who have everything they could dream of having at their disposal with regards to analysis, launch monitor tech et al.

Part of this of course is that the art of mechanically-sound swinging has been long lost and the Modern Golf Swing continues to prove that it is inferior to the Classic way of swing both in terms of injury risk reduction, career longevity and of course performance.

Eyebrow-raising stuff in these numbers, and in Part 2 of Rory’s Driving Accuracy, we’ll have a look at his actual driver swinging and the thing that jumped out at me when I took a look at one of them.