Rory McIlroy left trailing in Tiger hunt
From before the time he was chipping golf balls into a washing machine on TV as a nine-year-old prodigy, Rory McIlroy had longed for the day that he could go head-to-head with a big title on the line with his idol, Tiger Woods.
Sure, Woods tried to chase him down with a final-round 62 on the day that McIlroy won the 2012 Honda Classic and became World No 1 for the first time.
Yesterday’s round at the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club, however, marked the first time that golf fans were treated to a final-round, final pairing of Woods, the 14-time major champion, and McIlroy, the four-time major winner and his heir apparent.
Now on the tee ...
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) September 23, 2018
The final pairing ...@TigerWoods and @McIlroyRory. #QuickHits pic.twitter.com/DCYXkSww0U
“I dreamed as a little kid playing in the final group with Tiger Woods in a big tournament,” McIlroy said.
“He was the best in the world, of all time, and you dream of beating the best.”
Careful what you wish for warned another former World No 1 David Duval, a winner of 13 titles during the heart of the Tiger era.
I’ve heard some of these young guys talk about they wish they could’ve played against Tiger in his prime. The fuck you do?” said Duval, now a Golf Channel commentator.
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The long-awaited McIlroy-Woods duel turned out to be more nightmare than a dream come true for the Northern Irishman. McIlroy, 29, entered the final round tied with Englishman Justin Rose and trailing Woods, who has had four back operations since spring 2014 and was limited to 12 tour starts from 2015 through 2017, by three stokes. McIlroy, who won the Tour Championship here in 2016, knew he had to play a flawless round if he was going to chase down Woods, golf’s greatest closer, who was 23 for 23 in tournaments after leading by three strokes or more heading into the last round.
“All I can do is concentrate on myself,” McIlroy said.
“The game is hard enough without looking at other people. Go out there, take care of my business, and hopefully that’s good enough.”
On a hot, humid day McIlory wasn’t good at all. Knowing he could ill afford any mistakes, he suffered another Sunday swoon. In another big spot, McIlroy’s biggest weapon, his driver, proved to be his Achilles heel.
Woods made a bold statement at the first, when he split the fairway, planted a mid-iron to 10 feet and poured in the birdie putt to stretch his lead to four strokes. No words were exchanged walking to the next tee, but Woods made clear to McIlroy that he was going to have to come and get him.
On the first three holes, McIlroy was away on the green and failed to convert any of his lengthy birdie putts. If Woods gave McIlroy an opening to cut into the lead, it came at the fourth hole, when Woods drove into the right rough and knocked his second shot into the right fairway bunker.
But McIlroy, with just 132 yards to the flag, dumped his wedge into the bunker. To compound his mistake, he failed to get it up and down, while Woods walked in his par putt and extended his lead to five strokes.
The writing was on the wall, but it only got worse from there for McIlroy, who sprayed tee shots left and right (requiring an unplayable on No. 7), and shot four-over 39 on the opening nine. It was another Sunday to forget in a big spot, symptomatic of his whole season and it doesn’t bode well for McIlroy and his role as the unofficial leader of the European side at the Ryder Cup.
Who could have imagined that Woods would enter the biennial competition next week as the hottest golfer on the American side?
The Woods comeback story appears to be on its way to ending in storybook fashion. (He led by five strokes on the back nine at press time.) Woods started slowly on the West Coast, picked up steam on the Florida Swing, lost momentum at the Masters and US Open, but looked to be for real when he nearly won the Open Championship (T-6) and the PGA Championship (second).
After being written off as dead and stuck on 14 majors and 79 PGA Tour titles, Woods’ first victory in more than five years, dating to the 2013 WGC Bridgestone Invitational, is the comeback story of the year not just in golf, but all of sports. Some may say he only beat a field of 29 golfers, but it included 18 of the top 20 players in the world and all four major winners and the World No 1. Woods made golf look easy again, ranking third in fairways hit, first in scrambling and first in strokes gained-putting through three rounds.
Is Tiger back? Expecting him to reach a level of performance that he once achieved in his 20s and 30s is highly unlikely. Instead, let’s call it the start of a new chapter, and one that may prove to be the most interesting, as he takes on the young guns and renews his pursuit of Jack Nicklaus’s record of 18 majors.
It also begs the question: Who will step up for the Europeans against Woods in the Ryder Cup? Yesterday, it proved too big a task for either McIlroy or Rose.
