Rory looks to end winless skid
Ten days ago, Rory McIlroy wasn’t sure if he was going to play the rest of the season.
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 more than 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 yesterday. “I want to win at least once before the end of the year. I haven’t not won a tournament since the 2008 season, which was my real rookie season on the European Tour.”
Even in 2013, when he struggled with an equipment change, McIlroy won the Australian Open by 1 shot ahead of Adam Scott and headed into the offseason 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 done, though McIlroy faces a field that in some respects is tougher than the PGA Championship.
The Northern Trust, which starts today 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 different player in the past five years to be the No. 1 seed. The points count four times as much for the next three playoff events until they reset for the Tour Championship at East Lake in Atlanta.
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 top 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. Thomas has one more victory and some impressive rounds (his 59 at the Sony Open), while Spieth has been more consistent.
“You’re the MVP of the league,” Spieth said, who won the award in 2015 when he won five times, including two majors and the FedEx Cup. “When you put it that way, it’s something that you want really badly, and you want to be considered the best player . . . . So it’s a fight, and it’s something that is keeping me going and grinding at the end of a really good season.”
Ridley in for Payne
Fred Ridley first came to Augusta National to compete in the 1976 Masters as the U.S. Amateur champion, and he played the opening round in the traditional pairing with the defending champion, Jack Nicklaus.
He will have a new role in his next round at Augusta National — the seventh chairman in the 86-year history of the club.
Billy Payne announced yesterday he is retiring Oct. 16 when the club opens for a new season, and he chose Ridley to succeed him.
“If he’s not better than me, then I failed,” Payne said. “And I fully expect him to be. I’ve seen his passion and his love for our club. I know the way the members respect him, and in many cases, love him. He is going to be a natural fit. And he will lead us in a different way because everybody is different. But it’s going to be a better way. This is a great move for Augusta National.”
Ridley, a 65-year-old business lawyer from Tampa, is the last U.S. Amateur champion who never turned pro. He played in the 1977 Walker Cup, was twice a Walker Cup captain, served on the USGA executive committee for 11 years and was president of the USGA in 2004 and 2005.
He also is the reason Payne chose to retire.
“Once I finally decided that Fred was the right person, then I had the sense I had completed my most important job,” Payne said. “To make that orderly transition, I needed to get going.”
Back to Motown
Golf is returning to Warwick Hills, north of Detroit, next year as part of the Champions Tour schedule. The tour announced the Ally Challenge will be played in September 2018. Warwick Hills in Grand Blanc, Michigan, hosted the Buick Open for 45 years through 2009. Ally Financial signed a three-year agreement as the title sponsor . . . .
Leona Maguire of Ireland won the Mark H. McCormack medal for the third straight year as the leading female in the world amateur golf rankings.
Maguire will be a senior next season at Duke.