All aboard the McIlroy glory train
RORY McILROY hopes he can bring huge momentum to Europe’s bid to win an unprecedented fourth successive Ryder Cup after his PGA Tour Championship win.
McIlroy won a three-man play-off, which included the United States’ last wild-card pick Ryan Moore, in Atlanta to win the PGA Tour’s season-ending event.
He also beat Dustin Johnson, who is set to be one of America’s big guns later this week, to the £8.8million FedEx Cup prize.
McIlroy has now won twice in three weeks on the PGA Tour and said: “Paul McGinley, the previous captain, texted me and said, ‘This is the first bit of hopefully a lot of momentum for Europe in the next few days’.
“Hopefully it helps the team, helps them galvanise and we can all get off on the right foot. I’m just looking forward to meeting up with the guys.
“When I get in situations like this, over the last couple of years anyway, I seem to produce my best golf.
“I’ve never gone into a Ryder Cup with this much excitement coming off the back of something like this.”
Missing the cut at July’s USPGA Championship proved a watershed.
“You need weeks like that,” added McIlroy. “It was blatantly obvious what I needed to do in terms of trying to fix my putting. I started on a process to do that and didn’t think results were going to come as quickly.
“I’ve played really well but I’ve also putted well. I’ve converted more of my chances I’m giving myself, so it was nice to just set the reset button after the USPGA.
“You have goals, you have ambition, you have drive to work hard for something else and I wanted to try to at least give myself a chance in these play-offs and then obviously look forward to the Ryder Cup.”