McIlroy comes up short
Molinari is the master after two-horse race
At Wentworth they like to think of their club as the Augusta National of Europe and, for Rory McIlroy, there were certainly painful echoes of what happened at the Masters last month as he came up short yesterday in another final-round shootout.
this time it was Francesco Molinari playing the Patrick Reed role as he lived up to the old fable that ‘slow and steady wins the race.’ the consistent 35-year-old is now heading for a triumphant homecoming at the Italian Open this week as the holder of Europe’s flagship title, back in the world’s top 20 and with a third Ryder Cup appearance in Paris in September now in his sights.
Molinari was in control for so long it was fairly startling to see him walk on to the par-five 18th green with the job still not done. McIlroy, finding his game over the closing holes, struck two beautiful shots to 20 feet while Molinari was six feet short in four.
trailing by three, McIlroy knew that if he could roll in his eagle attempt, it would ask the question of Molinari, who would then have needed to hole to win.
McIlroy’s putt down the hill looked in all the way but came up a fraction short. He dropped to his haunches in frustration but, if truth be told, Molinari — who was second last year and had four other top-ten finishes in this event — fully deserved to win.
the pressure off, he holed his putt for par to complete a week in which the only bogeys he had were at the first hole on thursday and the tenth on Friday — a remarkable achievement given the course’s stringent nature. He signed for a 68 to McIlroy’s 70.
‘I’m delighted to get over the line after so many close finishes in the past,’ said Molinari.
‘If I could have picked one more event to win in my career it would have been this one. I made it more interesting at the end but I got the job done.’
Joint third place went to Scandinavians Alex Noren and Lucas Bjerregaard, while the leading Englishmen were Matt Fitzpatrick and Ross Fisher, who finished joint eighth.
With a four-shot lead over the quartet tied for third at the start of play, it was always likely that two men boasting the qualities of Molinari and McIlroy would engage in hand-to-hand combat.
Would it be one of the leading exponents of hitting fairways and greens or the Northern Irishman who possesses a higher gear when the mood takes him?
In Molinari’s favour was his clear love of the venue, while, for McIlroy, the question was whether he could regain the sublime rhythm he showed during the first two rounds but which deserted him on Saturday.
We didn’t have to wait long for the answer as McIlroy missed fairways left and right early on. His anger was plain but it says much for his underrated short game that he kept escaping with pars.
trouble was, Molinari was throwing in the odd birdie and when McIlroy slipped up with bogeys at the ninth and tenth, the Italian had a four-shot lead.
thereafter, he delivered a masterclass in frontrunning before a slight wobble at the 18th.
McIlroy now heads for the Memorial event on the PGA tour this week, hoping to build on his play over the closing holes.
Nagging away at him, though, will be the thought that this was the third shootout this year where he has come off second best, following his loss to Haotong Li in Dubai in January and, of course, at the Masters to Reed.
‘When you’re three shots ahead after 36 holes you want to win,’ he said. ‘But I’m not far away.’
As for Molinari, in Ryder Cup terms, his performance pre-empted the most famous song of Simple Minds, who played a set in the tented village afterwards.
Don’t you forget about me, indeed. As for the band’s fellow Scots, Richie Ramsay was their leading contender, closing with a 72 to leave him five-under par.