RORY v BROOKS
BEHOLD, A RIVALRY FOR THE AGES?
At last year’s seasonending Tour Championship, Rory Mcilroy got the “revenge” he was looking for against Brooks Koepka, leaving the best player on the planet in his wake en route to capturing the Fedex Cup. It was Rory’s third win of the season, the second season-long points title of his career and most importantly a bold statement. It also offered a promise of what could come.
Golf by its nature rarely lends itself to such headto-head machismo. There have been a few notable exceptions: Snead vs. Hogan, Jack vs. Arnie and Tom, Tiger vs. Phil, Vijay and Ernie. Though even some of those never really lived up to the billing; Tiger so often outplayed everyone that his key challengers rarely put up a fight.
But now there’s Mcilroy and Koepka.
At the WGC Fedex St. Jude Invitational in July, the two were paired together in a final round for the first time. Koepka started the day one back of Mcilroy, quickly erased the deficit with three birdies over his first six holes and never saw the Northern Irishman again. A month later, the roles were reversed with Mcilroy trailing by a stroke going into the final round at East Lake. He shot the best score of the day, a 66, to coast to the title.
In order for there to be a rivalry, after all, it has to be competitive. These two heavyweights of the game certainly have the capability to be just that. Each has won four majors, they are ranked No. 1 (Koepka) and 2 (Mcilroy) in the world and they are a year apart in age, with Mcilroy 364 days older than Koepka.
Then there’s their makeup. Each is a physical specimen with the athleticism they bring to the game, there is a mutual respect between the two yet they’re not the closest of friends, and both have shown a willingness to be outspoken on an array of topics, Rory in a thoughtful way and Koepka with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Mcilroy is largely genial, Koepka often brooding.
Others match-ups would be equally compelling – Koepka vs. DJ, Mcilroy vs. Rickie, Jordan Spieth vs. Justin Thomas. But none would deliver quite the same punch. When asking players who the best in the game is when he is at his best, the name that most often comes up is Mcilroy. Koepka, for his part, is simply just the best in the game at the moment, particularly given his penchant for playing big-time golf in big-time tournaments.
And that’s the thing: They’ve got the type of modern-day games and resumés to back it up. In a sport that so often has delivered star power but lacked a mano-a-mano rivalry, Rory vs. Brooks has all the potential to do just that. Imagine it for years to come.
There is a section on the PGA Tour’s website devoted solely to player statistics. The data on pitching is particularly comprehensive – you can dice and splice it from a wide range of wedge yardages from 50 all the way up to 125. But no matter which segment you select, you’ll have to scroll way, way down the page to find the name of Rory Mcilroy. Approaches from 75-100 yards: 68th. Approaches from 100-125 yards: 86th. Approaches from 50-125 yards: 120th. To put this into perspective, Mcilroy was, on average, only 14 feet closer to the pin from wedge range than he was from between 200225 yards during the 2018/2019 season.
It’s no great secret that wedge play has been the weak link in an otherwise stellar Rory Mcilroy armoury of shotmaking. However, it’s something he has diligently been working on, and at East Lake there was a marked improvement. Ahead of the final round of the Fedex Cup, Sky Television’s Tim Barter spoke with Mcilroy, who admitted he had recently changed his approach to this part of the game, opting to rely more on his visual interpretation of the distance – “eyeballing it” – than the precise numbers offered by a yardage book. Mcilroy also stated he had reduced his number of wedge swings from three to two in an attempt to simplify his pitching and make it more instinctive.
This more natural approach to distance control seems much better-suited to Mcilroy’s natural, flair-based game than poring over charts and number-crunching.