McIlroy gets off couch, ready to work
Rory McIlroy tried everything he could to forget about golf in the days following the Masters.
He binge-watched “Billions.” He read a couple of books: “The Chimp Paradox” and “Essentialism.” And he knocked back a few bottles of wine — “that sounds really bad; it wasn’t that bad,” McIlroy said with a sheepish grin — before his wife Erica finally had enough and dragged him out of the house.
She told him they needed to go do something — anything. All of that other stuff wasn’t working.
McIlroy was upset after a final round 74 at Augusta National last month kept him from winning the one major that has eluded the 28-year-old during his exceptional professional career.
“The Masters has become the biggest golf tournament in the world, and I’m comfortable saying that,” McIlroy said. “I don’t care about the U.S. Open or The Open Championship. It is the biggest tournament in the world. It has the most amount of eyeballs, the most amount of hype. The most amount of everything is at Augusta.”
If McIlroy is in need of an elixir for his Masters memories, a trip to one of his favorite courses, the Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina, might just do the trick.
He has won the Wells Fargo Championship here twice, setting a tournament record with a dominating seven-shot win in 2015. He also won in 2010, and has five top-10 finishes here in the last five years.
This week he faces a star-studded field that includes Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Rickie Fowler, Justin Thomas, Jason Day, Hideki Matsuyama and Reed, among others. REED CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW >> Patrick Reed took the week off before the Masters, and it paid off beyond the work he did on his game. He also had time to get his eyes checked.
“First week ever wearing contacts, and I go ahead and make every putt I look at and win a golf tournament,” Reed said.
Reed said he had been struggling with reading at a distance — specifically the menu guide on his TV — when his wife, Justine, had seen enough. Reed recalled one moment when his wife and her parents could see the words, but everything was blurry to Reed.
“So we went to the eye doctor and next thing you know, I could see up close, but I can’t see anything past about 30, 40 yards,” Reed said Wednesday. “Everything was really blurry. So I got a prescription for contacts. Now all of a sudden I can read greens pretty well,” he said. “And it worked at Augusta.”
NEW TOURNAMENT IN SAUDI ARABIA >> The European Tour has added another tournament to the Middle East swing, and it already is lining up star players. The Saudi Arabia Golf Federation says the tournament will start Jan. 31 at Royal Greens Golf & Country Club, situated along the Red Sea coastline. Organizers said last week at the official opening of the club that Dustin Johnson and Reed already have agreed to play. Also in the field will be Paul Casey. The Saudi Arabia event will be held the same week as the Phoenix Open.