Rory McIlroy has two top five finishes in a row in the PGA Championship as he searches for a fifth major tournament
Rory McIlroy dug himself a hole too deep to climb out of during the first two days of the Wells Fargo Championship at TPC Potomac. The four-time major champion shot parity to make the number cut on his final warm-up before the PGA Championship before closing the curtain on the weekend.
McIlroy’s 68-68 on Saturday and Sunday was beaten by a single player on the field (Cameron Young) and pushed him from an early tee time on Saturday morning to a late finish on Sunday afternoon. Japan. With fifth place at TPC Potomac and second solo at mastersMcIlroy now has two top boxers in a row entering the PGA Championship for the first time since 2017 (he finished T22 at Quail Hollow at that PGA).
More importantly, perhaps McIlroy is hitting the ball pretty well. After leading the Masters field in strokes reached from tee to green (via Data Golf), he was again in the top 10 in that category at Wells Fargo. An approach game that has been lacking this season has been excellent in two consecutive events, and the distance that puts McIlroy best fit (50-125 yards) is where he has improved dramatically through 72 holes at TPC Potomac.
Justin Ray wrote about this earlier this week, but on the off-season, McIlroy’s average distance to hole from that distance was 24 feet, and his total score was 3. Neither of those numbers were good, and McIlroy improved them to 17. feet and 2 in extreme conditions. It’s certainly not the only path to victory or major championship competitiveness for McIlroy, but it seems to be the simplest.
McIlroy has a big summer on deck. His next starts will be at the PGA at Southern Hills ahead of the US Open at Brookline and the Open Championship at St. Andrews, a golf course he has owned for parts of his career. His chances of winning a major are how good he’s been driving for a few years now, and he’s going to a number of locations designed specifically for him.
“I’m really happy with my game,” McIlroy said. “I think it’s just another week of practice and competition. …My approach to the game is much better than before. Yeah, I think like the little things… like the play selection. Like the 16 shot option where you try to hit a wedge and don’t quite get it all, hit the slope, go back to the front of the green. You hit a three-quarter 9 iron. that may not happen. … Sometimes it’s like picking the right shot at the right time, things like that. But those are… just things that you can learn from playing golf. in the tournament, I guess.”
It could be easy to look at McIlroy’s game a year ago in the PGA at Kiawah and say he’s playing better now because he went to his second major tournament last year after a win at the tournament. this match. This time, however, his tackles were even better than last year, and despite not winning, it looks like things have settled down this time around. A good thing, since McIlroy finished T49 at that PGA.
“I’m playing well, playing very well,” McIlroy said. “No complaints about the game. Everything is pretty solid. Like I said, there’s just a few things here and there, a couple of misses, but really other than that, I feel like The game is in good shape.”
There’s a lot that has to happen for McIlroy (or anyone) to win a major. For Rory in particular, it was his approach of play (especially from shorter distances) and round avoidance (his 73 in Round 2 this week narrowly resulted in a miss) . However, he certainly hits the ball well enough – both statistically and anecdotally – to compete What will the fifth major be to add to his already oversized collection.
A handful of players will head to Tulsa among the favorites to win what should have been another glorious PGA Championship. Based on how the past few weeks have passed, the top two on that list should probably also be the top two of the Masters standings. Scottie Scheffler (with four championships this year) is by far the best golf player in the world, but Rory McIlroy – after a runner-up at Augusta National and a great performance this week at TPC Potomac – will probably be next on that list.
