There is one comment about the current state of golf that has been absolutely beaten to death since the decline of the great Tiger Woods…
The field is closer than ever before.
To disagree with this statement would be a futile effort in today’s landscape. While we’re used to having several household names to look out for every week, golf’s history has also grown accustomed to generation defining players. That one guy, or very small group, that is a clear step above the rest. There are so many important tournaments in the modern era that it’s easy for the limelight to be shared, I’m just not so sure the story is going to continue this way...
That dominant one guy or group doesn’t exist at the moment. The biggest reason for this being that since there is so much talent at the top, it is difficult to define where the “top” ends and the rest of the field begins. I think it’s safe to say that there have never been so many golfers considered elite, relative to the rest of the field, at any given time in history. This notion becomes truly staggering when you start sounding off the names: Thomas, Spieth, Day, Fowler, McIlory, Johnson, Rahm, Koepka, DeChambeau, Reed, Fleetwood, and Kaymer (?). All elite, all under 35.
And we’re just getting started.
As for the elite vets, Tiger is back(ish), Phil’s returned to the winner’s circle, Justin Rose is #1 in the world, Bubba won three times last year, Mark Leishman’s not going anywhere, Paul Casey lingers around the front page what feels like every week, Adam Scott still has the sexiest swing on the planet, Francesco Molinari is your Open Champion, Sergio now has a taste of the majors but still acts like he’s six years old, and Matt Kuchar might be playing the playing the best golf of his life when he’s not obliterating his ‘aw, shucks’ persona by skimping Mexican caddies.
Sorry Kuch, Sergio, couldn’t help it.
Now, the general consensus is that this stockpile of talent at the top of the sport makes golf better than ever before. Again, disagreeing would be a trivial endeavour. But I’ve been thinking about a different scenario that I believe to be imminent. I believe that one guy is out there. I believe there is a golfer out there that when they get their complete game together will be unstoppable. I believe there is a guy out there that will get to double digits in the major column, and will do so sooner than others would believe…
And that guy is Rory McIlroy.
Yes it’s sports writing, and yes it’s fun to predict and hypothesize, we all do it. But I would never write this column if I didn’t fully believe it.
Obviously, this prediction is not one you’d call a ridiculous stretch. Saying Rory’s career will be great is not so bold, and its not exactly a stretch to predict that it will be better than the careers of his contemporaries. After all, Rory has won 14 PGA tournaments already, four of those being majors, and several other big events around the world. My assertion here becomes even less audacious when considering it wasn’t that long ago that many of us golf nuts were tabbing the Northern Irishman as Tiger’s successor in the midst of his dominant run from 2011 through 2014, during which he won all four of his majors.
I know what you’re probably thinking. Not only is this article not bold… this man is downright defeating his argument within the text of his own work…
However. The point of this work is not just to say that McIlroy will be better than everyone else mentioned above, save for Tiger himself…
The point is that he will be way better.
While Rory’s run in the majors was insanely impressive, runs of that nature aren’t all that unique, even in golf’s current tight-knit state.
Padraig Harrington got the party started during Tiger’s knee issues in 2007 and 2008, winning three majors in a span of six that included back-to-back Open Championships.
Rory’s was next, but I’ll get to that shortly.
The youth movement has been the story since the end of Rory’s run, headlined by Jordan Spieth’s tear. To write about how Rory will be the king of golf without properly acknowledging Spieth as its prince would be foolish at best. The kid has got ice in his veins, and despite his recent pitfall in the world rankings, I believe Jordan will be the Phil to Rory’s Tiger, only Jordan will claim more majors than Phil.
Spieth’s final pairing appearance in his rookie Masters in 2014 sold me on the suggestion that he was on the path to superstardom. And if not for Bubba Watson’s driver, his run may have begun a year earlier. All Spieth did was return to golf’s greatest stage the following year and tie Tiger’s tournament scoring record with Rose and Mickelson chasing him… freaky good. A couple months later he played the most beautiful back nine on Sunday in the US Open at Chambers Bay before making a horrific double bogey on 17, and needing a gift from Dustin Johnson to avoid a playoff. But the way Jordan played the first 7 holes on the back, and how he bounced back to make birdie on 18 was nothing short of spectacular. And no one will ever forget his finishing stretch at Royal Birkdale in 2017, where he made that unfathomably good bogey after taking a drop on the on the driving range, and then ripped the British Open out of Kuchar’s hands by playing the next four holes five-under.
Oh yeah, there’s also that green jacket he dunked into the water at 12 in 2016, and the one he almost stole last year with a 64 on Sunday…
Alright I’ll move on… this isn’t supposed to be about Jordan Spieth, the mind wanders.
Golf’s most recent run of course belongs to Brooks Koepka. After watching his bona fide Hall of Famer best friend Dustin Johnson finally break through to win the US Open in 2016 (a win that many, including myself, considered a potential floodgate opener in majors), Koepka has emerged as the prevailing man-to-beat in the big events. The jacked 28 year-old from Florida has won three of the last six majors, and the last two were won so differently that Koepka has revealed he is no one-trick pony. After Tommy Fleetwood’s historic final round at Shinnecock Hills last June, Koepka had to play that treacherous back-nine while battling alongside DJ and staring at Fleetwood’s name on the leaderboard, all while Tommy watched anxiously from the clubhouse. Then, just two months later, Koepka put on a masterful display of “fairways-and-greens” at the PGA while listening to Tiger roars in front of him all day long.
The point I’m trying to make here is that Rory going on a run that ended five years ago does not a prognostication for “best of his time” make. However, while major title runs in general have not been all that unique in recent history… in terms of sheer dominance, Rory’s run reigns supreme.
Let me take you to Augusta, Georgia, in the April of 2011. 21 year-old Rory McIlroy, who had only won only one PGA Tour event to date, after spending the previous three days decimating his competition, wakes up on the Sunday morning of the Masters with a four shot lead. The front nine was a struggle at best, possibly the ugliest 37 I’ve ever seen on the opening side of Augusta National, and his lead decreased to just one as he made his way to the 10th tee…
When disaster struck.
His tee shot on the difficult par-4 almost went through a cabin window, left of left. He pitched out into the rough on the opposite side of the fairway, miles from the green. His third went way left again, his first chip hit a tree, and he failed to get up and down on the second effort. If that triple didn’t end his tournament, the four-putt double on 12 certainly did…
McIlroy’s 80 was hard to watch, especially when you consider that the course was playing relatively easy with lots of guys in the 60’s on Sunday, including Charl Schwartzel’s 66 to win by two.
I remember thinking then “hey, no problem, he’s 21.” His rise to prominence happened fast and was impossible to ignore, so I knew he’d be back. But I remember being confident it would take him a while. There have been countless great players that have never held the lead in any major, let alone a four-shot lead. I was sure that moment would prove to be a harsh setback for young McIlroy.
Turns out, Rory did in fact learn a valuable lesson during the 2011 Masters, but it wasn’t what I thought it would be. Evidently, the biggest thing Rory took from that week at Augusta came from those impressive first three days…
He learned he could dominate.
Fast-forward two months to Bethesda, Maryland, and the US Open at Congressional. I’ll spare any sort of dramatization here, as there was zero drama to be spoken of. Rory decimated the field. He had the low round both Thursday and Friday, despite a double on 18 in round two. He took an eight shot lead into Sunday, and never gave any one else a sniff of the title as he cruised all week to win by eight. He became the third player in US Open history to play all four rounds in the 60’s, and broke Tiger’s tournament record at 16-under.
If there was any possible way to best breaking one of Tiger’s records for his first major, breaking one of Jack’s for his second would be it… and that’s just what Rory did.
Rory took a three-shot lead into the final round of the 2012 PGA Championship at Kiawah Island, and fired a sizzling 66 on Sunday for yet another eight-shot victory, besting Nicklaus’ 32-year tournament record of a seven-stroke margin.
He took a six-shot lead into the final round of the 2014 British for his third major, and out lasted a crowded and talented leaderboard the following month at Valhalla. Add in a pair of WGC event titles, and a 2016 FedEx Cup championship thanks to a pair of playoff wins, and you’ve got yourself a Hall of Fame career.
He struck fear. He had swagger.
Since 2014, McIlroy has firmly remained in the conversation of “who’s the best.” But with four full seasons now gone by without a major, Rory has gotten lost in the shuffle a bit, just one of many talented players in the most loaded competition in this sport’s history.
Now, clearly Rory is no forgotten man. But the youth movement, Spieth and Koepka’s runs, the fireworks of Fleetwood, the return of Tiger, Rickie constantly knocking on the door, and guys like Justin Thomas and Patrick Reed recently notching their first majors… all of these events have seemingly made us forget that Rory is the only golfer in the past decade to show any evidence that they can consistently, and absolutely, destroy their competition. He’s the only player that has proven they are impossible to beat if they are at their best. Golf has demonstrated on countless occasions that the mindset of fans heavily includes the notion of “what have you done for me lately.” No one forgets what Rory accomplished, but most don’t seem surprised that he isn’t winning anymore either.
So what happened?
McIlroy has won only one worldwide event since 2016, the Arnold Palmer Invitational last year. Now I realize that this is golf we’re talking about… it’s really bleeping hard to win on the Tour. And as I’ve discussed throughout this article, it’s probably tougher now than at any other point in history. But that shouldn’t matter for the generational talent that I know Rory McIlroy is.
My memory of his ridiculous run, the completion of which was well over four years ago now, serves as one significant reason as to why I believe McIlory will pull away from this current group of talent. The second important reason why, and the real impetus for my writing this article, is this…
Over the past two years, Rory McIlroy has unequivocally been the most frustrating professional golfer I’ve ever watched.
While I realize that this doesn’t exactly sound like an endorsement, I assure you that it is.
Now, I’m not here to give you a technical analysis full of advanced metrics and statistics, because that just isn’t my style. I’m simply here as a heavily invested fan of the game of golf, one that relentlessly watches these players week in and week out, who has noticed a consistent trend that is the source of so much irritation in my life…
Rory is the best driver of the golf ball the world has ever seen, and he’s been doing it almost every week for years now. He gives himself far more scoring opportunities on par-fours and fives than his fellow competitors, and yet somehow he has stopped winning.
Obviously, there is much more to the game than hitting off the tee. Luckily for Rory, he also happens to possess remarkable touch around the greens. So, how does a guy that obliterates the field off the tee every single week, who has already proven that he has the ability to dominate the biggest events, and who can get up-and-down from anywhere, win one tournament in two years as he enters what should be his golfing prime?
For some reason, he hasn’t been getting the damn ball close to the hole.
I have never seen a guy consistently have so many wedges and short irons into par-4s in the modern era… period. But there are at least 100 guys out there I would pick to hit that second shot over Rory.
The exciting thing is that even though he’s not winning yet, this area of Rory’s game seems to finally be getting better. He’s been a birdie machine in recent months, finishing in the top-five in the past three events. And for the record, I watched all three events, and he had nowhere close to his best game in any of them. As many birdies as he’s making, he’s leaving a ton of them out there. We’ve seen his putter get hot, but this is certainly Rory’s second weakest area (particularly on Sundays as of late). The flat stick went missing for a couple years after his brilliant run but has steadily improved in recent years, and his ball striking alone keeps him in every tournament he enters. So what’s the best way to make more putts? You guessed it… hit it snugger.
Is this an easy task? Of course not. But out of all the problems to have on the golf course, I’m confident these guys would prefer having issues getting their wedges close to the hole from the middle of the fairway than not having a wedge in hand in the first place. As golf courses have continuously gotten longer amidst golf’s technological revolution, hitting it long and straight is more important than ever before, and Rory does it better than anyone else ever has.
Additionally, McIlory’s strong greenside game and rapidly improving putting are always going to protect him from making bogies in bunches, not to mention his phenomenal all-around ball striking. Sure, there a bunch of guys that I rattled off earlier that have shown their own flashes of brilliance, and any given week there is always a top player that doesn’t win that leaves you saying “Well, if he just had his insert club here going, he would’ve been unstoppable!” But for Rory, it’s every week that he has an opportunity to win, and it’s always the same shot that lets him down. And more importantly, again, we already know it’s in there. We’ve seen it. Golf can appear effortless for McIlroy, and he just keeps losing, and it just frustrates me so much to watch it.
So here we are.
You can’t teach what McIlroy is doing out there with the big dog. Rory smashed his way onto the golf scene with the driver. It has always been his most dangerous weapon, and he’s actually better at driving the ball now than he ever was before. If he can just do what Dustin Johnson did a few years back and really hone in his wedges and short irons, and his start to 2019 is showing that he’s finally trending in the right direction again, I believe we’re on the precipice of another explosion from the Northern Irishman. And further, that there is no one out there that will be able to do anything about it.
Play off the tee is paramount in today’s game. And it just so happens that the guy that is better than everyone else at this aspect of the game, also possesses the incomparable ability to run away with any tournament he enters. Rory’s best game, the game we haven’t seen in over four years now, far exceeds that of anyone out there.
He’s been lurking in the majors recently, and he’s been a top-10 machine throughout his career. But since that miraculous run at the beginning of his career, Rory McIlroy has become just one of the many exceptional golf talents on Tour today. And I just don’t buy it. Sometimes I swear I’ve felt like he’s doing it on purpose. Insane tee shots, one after the other, all day long, and then wedges to 30 feet. If it’s infuriating me, I can only imagine how it’s been for Rory.
No other player on Tour has the opportunity for unmatched greatness that Rory McIlroy does, and I feel like he’s just so damn close to realizing it. While it certainly is great for golf to have so many favourites each and every week, I would warn fans about getting used to it. He’s proven he can do it in the past, and I expect Rory McIlroy to dominate golf in the years to come.
Bring back the fear, Rory. Bring back the swagger.