Rory's other sport.

When Rory McIlroy met his new girlfriend Carolyn Wozniacki, he was not thinking that the sport of Tennis would change his golf game for good, but after attending a few professional tennis events it opened his eyes to another world.

"They work and practice so hard, it made me realize that I probably could work harder. It gave me a little more motivation to go into the gym and to hit more balls."

It did not take Rory long to find sports conditions expert Steve McGregor from England, the same guy that rebuilt another European star Lee Westwood’s body.  Using technology to look at muscle firing patterns during the swing they discovered Rory’s weaknesses and went to work building lower body strength and core stability.  Now Rory already hit the ball over 300 yards and he was not looking for more speed but his increased strength allowed him to control and use his power more effectively.  In his PGA Championship win he lead the field in driving distance with a 319-yard average.  The change is Rory’s body is evident and at 22 years old the world’s number one golfer has seen firsthand the benefit of golf specific fitness. 

“To be a top-class athlete, you have to train hard, you have to eat right, you have to get enough rest,” he says. "I feel the way golf is going nowadays, you have to treat yourself as an athlete. Even though maybe golf isn’t one of the more physically demanding sports in the world, you’ve still got to do your bit and train like it is."

While Gary Player, Greg Norman and Nick Faldo were great ambassadors for the concept of fitness in golf, Tiger Woods sparked a revolution in the sport when he burst onto the scene in the mid-'90s. The fitness trailer and the gym became a more popular hangout than the clubhouse bar, yet very few grasped the true intensity of Tiger's fitness or his determination to develop his physique. He has changed the game of golf more than anyone since Hogan, Palmer and Nicklaus.  It is too soon to tell if Rory will take golf to another level but at 22 years old and with the world’s number one target on his back, you can be sure that his dedication to fitness will serve him well in years to come.

If you want to know how fitness can help your game, the fastest way to find out how to start is to get physically evaluated by a TPI certified expert. Simply go the find an expert section on our website or click on the tab on the right side of this article to find an expert near you that can evaluate your body and build a fitness program that will help take your game to the next level.

 

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