Is McIlroy to be branded a ‘choker’?

IT was pretty much the same as last season over the weekend on the PGA Tour where Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy, playing in the final group at the Tournament of Champions, failed to win once again.

The Holywood man played in the final group on six occasions last season and failed to covert any of those chances into victory, and now for the seventh time in a row he’s done it again.

Maybe trying too hard to win or is there something going on behind the scenes that we don’t know about?

These are the questions that only Rory can answer, but one thing is for sure, he’s not the player that he was and hasn’t been for quite a while now.

His last victory on the PGA Tour was at Bay Hill in March of 2018 and that was his first since September of 2016, while his last win on the European Tour, was in May of the same year.

It’s not like he hasn’t been in contention, so what’s going on? Did he hit the top too quick and is he now feeling the pressure to win every time he tees it up?

One thing is for sure, he needs to win and soon, to avoid being branded a choker by the media.

Everything he does and says right now is under scrutiny and his comments about the European Tour being just a “stepping stone to greater things”, didn’t sit too well in some quarters.

However, he’s never been far from controversy throughout his career and I don’t think anything the press will say about him will bother too much.