KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. — The birth of a champion, and maybe golf’s next
dominant player, was a dispiriting, humiliating defeat. Put Rory McIlroy back
in the woods of the 10th hole at the 2011 Masters as he whacked his ball from
tree to tree, a boy lost in the forest on his way to a mortifying fall from the
summit of the leader board.
Wilting and wounded, McIlroy
vowed to return as something sturdier.
Fast-forward 16 months and
measure the substance of McIlroy’s comeback.
Two months after his Masters
collapse, he won the 2011 United States Open by 8 strokes and set 12 records
for the event. On Sunday, the 23-year-old McIlroy led the final round of the
2012 P.G.A. Championship from start to finish, crushing an elite field of new
wave and veteran contenders to again win by eight strokes — the largest margin
in the tournament’s 94-year history.
On Pete Dye’s unnerving Ocean
Course, during a weekend of unyielding pressure, McIlroy cruised to a
final-round six-under-par 66 — after a third-round 67 — while the rest of the
field averaged 72.2 strokes for the final two rounds. Leading by three strokes
after completing the rain-interrupted third round Sunday morning, McIlroy ran
away from his challengers. His four-day total on what many consider the most
difficult golf course in America was 13-under-par 275.
David Lynn, a European Tour
journeyman, was second at 283. Ian Poulter, who made an early charge at McIlroy
on Sunday, was one of four golfers tied for third at 284.
And now, as the golf world
wonders if it is witness to the dawn of the Rory Era — Tiger Woods, not
insignificantly, floundered down the stretch again — McIlroy still turns to his
past to give perspective on his future.
“Losing the Masters sets up everything to follow; it changed me,” he
said after he became the youngest winner in the modern era of the P.G.A. Championship
and the first from Northern Ireland. “It will always stand me in good stead. I
needed to learn how to play at the end of a major championship.”
What next for the new king of
men’s golf?
“I won my second major at roughly the same age as Tiger but he went
on an incredible run from there,” McIlroy, who is about five months younger
than Woods was when he won his second major. “I would love to say I’m going to
do the same thing, but I don’t know. I won my first major last and another one
this year. Hopefully, there’s a few more of these in my closet when my career
finishes.”
The message of McIlroy’s
precocious talent is getting through to his competitors. Listen to Poulter, who
birdied his first five holes Sunday and still trailed.
“You now, I’m looking at the leader board thinking I must be chasing
him down, but I never did,” Poulter said. “Rory is obviously playing some
immense golf. Everybody should take note: the guy is pretty good.”
The victory should also quell
criticism McIlroy has received about off-field distractions, specifically his
dating of the tennis star Caroline Wozniacki.
Padraig Harrington, a Dubliner
and past P.G.A. Championship winner who has said that McIlroy will be the first
to break Jack Nicklaus’s record of 18 career major championships, marveled at
what McIlroy has already accomplished, including the scale of his victory
Sunday.
“He lapped the field, and that’s twice he’s done that,” Harrington
said. “Quite impressive, isn’t it?”
The previous record for greatest
margin of victory at the P.G.A. was seven strokes by Nicklaus in 1980. It was a
record that seemed in jeopardy nearly from the start Sunday as McIlroy birdied
the second and third holes of the final round.
“Gaining confidence early was a big part of my plan for the day,”
said McIlroy, who is the new world No. 1 and the first player from the United
Kingdom to win the P.G.A. since Tommy Armour in 1930.
As Poulter, with sensational
iron play and aggressive putting, moved to two strokes of the lead three holes
into his back nine, McIlroy was calmly piling up pars even when he drove it
into the rough, as he did on the 10th and 11th holes. Poulter yanked a 200-yard
approach shot to the left of the 13th green, his ball bouncing off a sand dune
and coming to rest on a dirt path. It led to the first of three successive
bogeys .
McIlroy, like a seasoned
titleholder, responded with a birdie on the 12th, and the rout was on.
There were other would-be
contenders, but they faded fast. Paired with McIlroy, Carl Pettersson was
penalized two strokes on his first hole for accidentally moving a leaf —
considered a loose impediment — with the backswing of his club when his ball
was in a hazard.
Justin Rose, who tied for
third with Pettersson, fired a 66 on Sunday but lost the momentum of his
challenge on the back nine. Adam Scott, the British Open runner-up, who began
the final round four strokes out of the lead, also made an early run but
double-bogeyed the 13th to disappear from contention.
Woods had a series of birdie
putts flutter away from the hole on the front nine. Frustrated, his approach
shots began to wander too, and he had two bogeys on the back nine to finish at
par for the day and two under for the tournament, good for a tie for 11th.
As was the case when he won
with a score of 16 under par at the 2011 United States Open, McIlroy was
fortunate to be playing in favorable scoring conditions. While Friday — when
McIlroy shot 75 — was windy and testing, Sunday was hot with a minor breeze.
The Ocean Course was also softened considerably from rain earlier in the week,
as well as on Saturday when several golfers, including McIlroy, were chased
inside because of thunderstorms.
Perhaps McIlroy’s greatest
good fortune during the tournament occurred before the rain Saturday when an
errant drive of his lodged in the crevice of a dead tree on the third hole. Had
that ball not been found, McIlroy might have been looking at a big number that
could have undone his charge to the third-round lead. Instead, after a
one-stroke penalty, McIlroy made par.
“I didn’t think it at the time, but maybe the tree did do me a
favor,” McIlroy said Sunday night. “In the past, I haven’t been in the habit of
feeling good about being in the trees. But there’s always another lesson.”
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