McIlroy wants winning feeling as FedEx Cup playoffs begin
Ten days ago, Rory McIlroy wasn’t sure if he was going to play the rest of the year.
A week off made him feel good enough that a nagging rib injury can be managed well enough for him to compete in the FedEx Cup playoffs.
And with just over a month before he shuts it down for the year, McIlroy wants to do more than just play.
“I think the real thing for me was I want to win,” McIlroy said Wednesday.
“I want to win at least once before the end of the year.’’
Even in 2013, when he struggled with an equipment change, McIlroy won the Australian Open by one shot over Adam Scott and headed into the off-season feeling better about his game. He wound up winning two majors the following year.
“I’d like to have that feeling again before taking that time off at the end of this year and getting myself right for 2018,” he said.
The majors are over, though McIlroy faces a field that in some respects is tougher than the PGA Championship.
The Northern Trust, which starts Thursday at Glen Oaks on Long Island, features the top 120 players available based on their performance this season on the toughest circuit in golf.
There are no aging champions, amateur qualifiers or club professionals.
There is no Masters champion, either, as Sergio Garcia again is taking off the first playoff event.
Hideki Matsuyama enters the FedEx Cup playoffs as the fifth player in the last five years to be the No. 1 seed.
The points count four times as much for the next three playoff events until the reset for the Tour Championship at East Lake.
The objective is to be among the top five seeds going into the finale, where those players only have to win the Tour Championship to capture the $10 million bonus.
There remains plenty on the line beyond the cash for players who haven’t won majors this year — Matsuyama and Dustin Johnson — and even those who have.
PGA champion Justin Thomas and British Open winner Jordan Spieth are regarded the front-runners to be voted PGA Tour player of the year.
Three of the top six players in the world — Spieth, McIlroy and Henrik Stenson — have won the FedEx Cup. Stenson had a chance to be the first to go back-to-back until he ran into Spieth and his propensity to hole putts across the green.
McIlroy now has that opportunity, even though he starts the playoffs at No. 44 because of the stop-and-start nature of his season.
Then again, he is one of only two players in the 10-year history of the FedEx Cup to win after starting the playoffs out of the top 20. He was No. 36 last year.
“I think we’ve seen what can happen in these playoffs, and how quickly you can shoot up the rankings with a good week or a win,” he said.