A new year, a new putter for Rory McIlroy. The Northern Irishman, who has a mixed equipment bag following the departure of Nike from club manufacture, put the Odyssey O-Works putter into play in South Africa, and may well keep it after this week after a second place finish.

McIlroy’s average putts per round was 29.59 on the European Tour from 2010-2016. This week, it was 27.67. At one point on Friday, the Northern Irishman went eight under for eight holes, and had nine consecutive one-putts.

Putting held McIlroy back for much of 2016, and he admitted it was only in August that he finally got a second opinion from Phil Kenyon, which led to his Fed-Ex Cup victory in September.

“I mean, honestly, I was probably a little bit in denial about my putting at times last year”No, no, I’ve putted well before. I know what I’m doing. I know what I need to do.” And I was just a bit stubborn about it, I guess,” McIlroy told the Sunday Independent.

“I felt like I went long enough without asking for advice on my putting, which was clearly the thing that was letting me down,” McIlroy said.

While it might be unrealistic to expect these sorts of statistics every week on the greens, if he can knock one stroke off his putting this year, then he could well have his most successful year to date.