Will Rory McIlroy's eye surgery help him with his putting?
Rory McIlroy got laser eye surgery recently. He needs something to help him out on the greens. This could be it.
I hate to keep harping on it, but there's one statistical category from one player which could change the entire trajectory of the 2016 golf season. That would be Rory McIlroy's putting. We have already looked at how up and down he's been over the course of his career. He has finished outside the top 80 in strokes gained putting every year but one he has been on the PGA Tour. That's pretty bad.
There might be an elixir though. McIlroy got laser eye surgery a few weeks ago. He told the Telegraph he thinks that could help him on the greens.
“Listen I’ve wanted to do this since I was 18, but I wanted to be in position that if anything did go wrong I’d still be OK," said McIlroy. "I’ve always struggled with my eyes, especially in the summer with hay fever, when you’re rubbing your eyes and sometimes things get under the contact lens and so it becomes blurry. But, I mean, it’s only been a week since I had it done and it’s amazing.
“My vision is so sharp. It has to help putting, help me read the lines on the greens, where there is definitely room for improvement. What the doctor said was that it might just be the same vision as you have with your contact lenses when you are far away but close up - 20, 30 metres - is when people notice the sharpness.”
Even if McIlroy simply thinks it's working (i.e. the Placebo Effect) then maybe it's worth a couple of strokes throughout a week or a few weeks. That would be pretty much all he needs to have another historic season.
