After cruising to victory at the PGA Championship this past
weekend, Rory McIlroy took back the #1 world ranking. All I can say is, thank
goodness. In a time of golf where literally anyone with two hands can win a
major, McIlroy needs to maintain this ranking by continuing to pursue
dominance. We saw it from Rory in the first three rounds of the 2011 Masters.
We saw it again that year at the US Open, where he won with a tournament-record
score of 16 shots under par. We saw it again this past weekend, and now we need
to see more. A lot more.
The PGA thrives when one golfer is expected to win, as it
did from 2000-2008 when Tiger Woods won 12 majors. Tiger held the #1 ranking
for a whopping 623 weeks. I’ll do that math for you: that’s 12 years. The
sports world desperately wants Tiger to return to that level of play, but it’s
just not going to happen. Before every major, ESPN still throws out this
question. Who are you taking to win: Tiger Woods or the field? It has to stop.
It’s actually absurd. Since his win at the 2008 US Open, Tiger hasn’t won
another major, he tore up his knee, he took a break from the game following the
collapse of his marriage, and he lost his mojo that he carried on weekends at
majors. Honestly though, we need to get off of Tiger’s case. For a long period
of time, the guy played the game of golf better than it’s ever been played. On
top of that, he did so with huge drives, clutch putts, and numerous impossible
shots from the rough. While Tiger is already 36 and past his prime, he still is
a pretty damn good golfer and will probably win at least two more majors.
However, he’s done more than enough for golf, and it’s time to stop expecting
so much from him. It’s someone else’s turn.
Enter Rory: the most exciting golfer to hit the tour since…Tiger
Woods. Only 23 years old with two majors already under his belt, McIlroy has
everything it takes to become the next great golfer. He’s young. He’s cool.
He’s exciting. Hell, he’s even got a hot celebrity girlfriend (tennis player
Caroline Wozniacki). But up until the past few days, something was always been
missing from Rory. After leading the first three rounds of the 2011 Masters, he
imploded and shot an 80 in the final
round. He then responded by winning the 2011 US Open in historic form. At that
point, we all thought that Rory had arrived. But he disappointed from then
until this past weekend. He took some time off for undisclosed reasons,
complained about the weather at the British Open, and blew another lead at the
Masters. The determination to be great just wasn’t there. But that changed at
the PGA Championship. Rory looked more focused than ever. When he got the lead,
he not only held onto it but extended it. He ended up winning by eight strokes
in the dominant performance that golf fans were waiting for.
The PGA can’t afford to return to the period of futility
that occurred between Tiger’s US Open win and this most recent PGA
Championship. I don’t think people realized how truly awful the competition
was. Luke Donald, who has never had a top-2 finish in a major tournament,
somehow had the #1 ranking for an entire year. Lee Westwood held the #1 ranking
for 22 weeks even though he chokes in what seems like every single major. Even
Martin Kaymer was #1 for 8 weeks. MARTIN KAYMER?!? How the hell did this
happen? On top of all this madness, players like Charl Schwartzel, Lucas
Glover, Webb Simpson, Darren Clarke, and Y.E. Yang won majors. We can’t go back
to this; we need a dominant player to own the PGA tour and return the
excitement to the game. No, that player cannot be Tiger Woods, and it shouldn’t
be Tiger Woods. It has to be Rory McIlroy.
-PJ Moran
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