Rory Didn't "Sack" His Looper..."Changed My Path"

For once I admire someone leaning on euphemisms and jargon to defend a decision, because it's pretty clear from reading Steve DiMeglio's USA Today account that Rory McIlroy didn't feel good about firing longtime caddie J.P. Fitzgerald midseason.

From the story:

“There’s nothing to say that J.P. mightn’t work for me again at some point, but right now I just felt like I needed a little bit of a change,” McIlroy said. “I hate the term fired or sacked or axed, because that’s definitely not what it was. I just changed my path a little bit, but maybe in the future that path might come back to where it was. Right now I just needed to mix things up a little bit, and J.P. understood that and we’re still all good.”

Time will tell if, during a season he's mixed things up so much already, this was the right call.

Karen Crouse of the New York Times notes something that suggest McIlroy could be forcing himself into a different level of engagement that either works or backfires.

Last week, two days after finishing in a tie for fourth at the British Open, McIlroy parted with the caddie J. P. Fitzgerald. In their nine years together, Fitzgerald had shepherded McIlroy to four major championships and the top of the world rankings.

For at least the next two weeks, Diamond, a Northern Irishman who had a decorated amateur career, will carry McIlroy’s clubs while McIlroy bears the burden of determining the yardages and choosing his clubs — and living with the decisions.

“I’ve enjoyed the last couple of days of carrying a yardage book, doing my own numbers, pacing stuff out, really getting into the shot, something I haven’t done for a few years,” McIlroy said.