McIlroy prevails with patience
Rory McIlroy awoke Sunday to a storm that forced him into a waiting game and then discovered a film crew inadvertently had shown the golf world the pass code to his iPhone as he typed it in.
Ninety minutes later he faced the burden of keeping some of the game’s heavyweights at a distance and slugging it out with soggy Valhalla Golf Club to win the 96th PGA Championship.
Two hours into his final round, McIlroy had lost the lead he earned through the tournament’s first 54 holes and looked puzzled as his game looked frazzled. But patient he remained. The world’s No. 1 player finally gathered himself and remained collected the rest of the way as fireworks and roars exploded in front of him on the prairies and backwoods of the Bluegrass State. Barely beating the setting sun and approaching thunder and lightning, the Summer of McIlroy continued as he held off Rickie Fowler, Phil Mickelson and Henrik Stenson to win the season’s last major, his second in a row.
up and try to finish, moving aside in the fairway so McIlroy, then with a two-shot lead, could hit his tee shot on 18. And then they did it again, clearing the green so McIlroy could hit his approach on the par-five 18th.
If they had not done that, McIlroy would have had to stop and come back this morning to try to finish off his victory, or he would have played in almost total darkness.
That’s golf for you: The two players who were trying to defeat McIlroy extended him the ultimate courtesy that in the end helped him beat them.
“I want to thank Phil and Rickie for letting us play up,” McIlroy said. “It showed a lot of sportsmanship and class from those guys.”
“It’s like a courtesy thing among players,” Mickelson said, “in case they blow the horn (signaling that only those who have hit tee shots can finish that hole before play is stopped). It gave everybody a chance to finish. It was great everyone had a chance to finish just in the nick of time. It’s not a big deal either way.”
In the end, in the midst of the chaos of players moving aside and balls flying through the night sky, Mickelson birdied the 18th and Fowler and McIlroy parred it, leaving McIlroy, 25, with a oneshot victory over Phil for the fourth major title of his young career.
All the last-minute machinations deprived Mickelson and Fowler of the opportunity to put serious pressure on McIlroy by finishing up on the green before McIlroy hit his second shot. The two Americans said later they didn’t realize officials were allowing McIlroy to hit his approach early, too, but to their credit, they immediately shrugged it off.
“We weren’t expecting the approach shots, so however you look at it, it is what it is,” Fowler said. “Obviously Rory played great this week. Best player in the world, hands down.”
The wild and most unusual ending to the tournament will be remembered for as long as people recall these things, but it should never for a moment overshadow the wonderful drama of Sunday’s golf itself. There was 25-year-old Fowler, finally taking the lead in a major this year and holding it through a good portion of the late afternoon before falling into a tie for third. His year in majors: a tie for fifth at the Masters, a tie for second at both Opens and now a tie for third.
“This is the first one that hurts,” he said.
And then there was Mickelson, 44, who hadn’t finished in the top 10 on the PGA Tour all year. He had jump-started his season the previous Sunday with a 10-birdie round of 62 at the Bridgestone Invitational, then went 69-67-6766 here.
The magical day looked to be his, if only a 25-foot eagle putt on the seventh hole hadn’t slid just by the hole, or a chip on No. 16 had somehow taken its second bounce into the hole, rather than spinning around the edge of the cup and rolling 10 feet by, ending in a bogey.
It was there for the taking, but it was not to be.
“It was fun having a chance,” Mickelson said. “It was fun playing with Rickie that final group. It was fun making some birdies early to get up on top of that leaderboard and be on top starting the back nine. That was really fun. And between Rickie and I, we kept going back and forth birdieing holes. Our best-ball score was pretty darned good.”
Everything was that way Sunday at the PGA. The golf was terrific. The ending was weird. But the right man won, no matter who played what shot when.