Rory McIlroy heads to Oakmont confident in his putting

DUBLIN, Ohio — Rory McIlroy feels good about his putting stroke.

His iron play, on the other hand, needs some work.

The world No. 3 fired a final-round, 4-under-par 68 Sunday to finish two shots out of a playoff at 13 under and in a tie for fourth in The Memorial at Muirfield Village, his final tuneup before the U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club in two weeks.

“I expect a little bit of a tougher test at Oakmont, but I feel like my game’s in good shape,” said McIlroy, who changed his putting grip this week back to conventional style. “Off the tee I was really good this week, and I feel like my putting improved quite a lot. If you look at the stats from my putting this week, it's actually been really good.

“So all things considered, it's been a decent week. Time to get ready for Oakmont in a couple weeks’ time.”

McIlroy said he would head to Pittsburgh on Sunday night and will play Oakmont Monday and Tuesday morning. Much of his work will deal with his iron play.

“My iron play hasn't been great. I'm just not hitting the ball close enough to the flag with my mid-irons,” he said. “I need to work on that a little bit, try to shallow out the plane a little bit. Getting a little steep with my short irons.”

He’ll be doing a lot of reconnaissance, too. He’s never been to Oakmont but did get a tutorial when he fired up his computer.

“I was actually on the USGA website last night just looking at the flyovers for the holes,” McIlroy said. “So I don't really know a lot about it. I know there's a big road (Pennsylvania Turnpike) that goes through the middle of it.

“It looks like an awesome golf course. It looks unbelievably hard, and it will reward very good ball striking. It's going to be tough. I remember watching a little bit of it back in ’07 when (Angel) Cabrera won. I'd say you're probably going to expect a similar score (5 over) to win this year again if conditions are the way they want them to be.”

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