McIlroy nowhere in contention at PGA Championship as Morikawa wins after most exciting Major finish in years

I watched practically every shot of the PGA Championship over the weekend and while it would be my least favourite of the four majors, it was indeed most enjoyable, and provided a bit of excitement, with the possibility of a seven-way playoff at one stage.

However, at the end, Collin Morikawa held his nerve to pull away for a final round of 64 and a two-shot victory over Dustin Johnson and Paul Casey, and by now you’ve read all the reports on how it all panned out, so there no point in me rehashing that.

The final round and the tournament itself certainly threw up a lot of other interesting observations/ questions, the most prominent of which is (again): what has gone wrong for Rory McIlroy at majors?

Since his win in the PGA Championship at Valhalla in 2014, his record in majors makes for interesting reading, beginning with the Masters where he was 4th in 2015, tied for 10th in 2016, tied for 7th in 2017, tied for 5th in 2018, and tied for 21st last year.

At the Open championship he didn’t play in 2015, so his record from 2016 on, is tied for 5th, tied for 4th, tied for 2nd and missed the cut last year at Royal Portrush.

In the US Open from 2015 he has tied 9th in 2015, then missed the cut three years in a row, before tying for 9th again last year, while at the PGA, he has finished 17th in 2015, missed the cut in 2016, tied 22nd 2017, tied 50th in 2018, tied for 8th in 2019 and tied for 33rd this year.

So, to sum it up, in 20 major appearances since his last win, he has had 9 top-10s (which include five top 5s), missed five cuts and finished outside the top 20 in the other six events.

An impressive record if you’re an ordinary journeyman touring professional, but not if your Rory McIlroy, a four-time major winner and rated among the greatest players in the world.

Since his last major win six years ago, he has won five times on the European tour and nine times on the PGA tour so it’s not like he is suffering from a loss of form, but what has gone wrong in the majors?

The one that he needs to complete his career Grand Slam is the Masters, and that is the very event that he has performed best in since 2014.

Some experts say that his putter is at fault and that he is a “streaky” putter, which is hard to argue with, but at the PGA last week, it was his driver that seemed to be the problem, where his stats show that he hit just under 43% of the fairways and on three holes in particular, 12, 13 and 14, he dropped a total of ten shots over the four rounds.

Level par for those holes over the four rounds would have seen him at 13 under and just one shot behind the winner, Morikawa, who claimed the Wannamaker Trophy with a four-round total of 13 under par.