Mcilroy’s swashbuckling return to form

Winning the Arnold Palmer Invitational may not have been the biggest victory of Rory Mcilroy’s career, said Ewan Murray in The Guardian. But it was “without question among the most significant”. On Sunday, the 28-year-old Northern Irishman sealed his first tournament success for 18 months in “swashbuckling style”. Having started the final day two adrift of the lead, he sank five birdies in his final six holes to win by three shots. It was the kind of “rocket-fuelled” golf that we feared Mcilroy “could no longer produce” after last season, when he went the whole year without a victory. But having dropped down to a world ranking of No. 13, his lowest since 2009, he is now back up to seventh. Mcilroy’s odds of triumphing next month at the Masters, the one major he hasn’t yet won, “have suddenly become a lot shorter”.

Just as excitingly, this tournament confirmed that Tiger Woods is well and truly back, said Derek Lawrenson in the Daily Mail. Four months after returning to action, following a six-month period in which he didn’t even swing a club, he finished fifth – his second top-five finish in as many weeks. The 42-year-old “raised the temperature” with three birdies in his first eight holes, only for his “chance of victory” to disappear on the 16th. Still, his performance “set the stage for what promises to be a Masters for the ages”: Woods must be considered “a serious contender to win a fifth green jacket”.