PGA Championship: Kiawah Island could see another Rory McIlroy masterclass even if numbers suggest otherwise

Getty Images

Golf is a numbers game and the data suggests Rory McIlroy shouldn’t really be in contention come Sunday at Kiawah Island.

Seven years have passed since the McIlroy’s last Major triumph – during which the Northern Irishman has played in 23 and missed five cuts, most recently at April’s Masters.

In addition, in winning at Quail Hollow in his final warm-up for this week’s PGA Championship, he found just 19 of 56 fairways, the least by a PGA Tour winner in over three decades. At a course as gargantuan as Kiawah – a yardage of 7,786 – the 32-year-old desperately needs remember how to use his driver.

But amid all the statistics, there is always McIlroy’s ability to defy expectations – both good and bad. Take Quail Hollow where, having not made a cut since March, he was given no chance and yet came out with a first victory in 18 months.

Added to that is the fact he took the win when not playing at his best, and this week, for the first time in his career, he will compete for a Major on a course where he has won one before. Such mental reaffirmation cannot be totalled by numbers alone.

McIlroy’s career has been defined by getting on a roll in tournaments. In time, Quail Hollow could be the point where the fire was lit just days after his Ryder Cup captain Padraig Harrington had admitted: “I’ve never seen him so low.”

Such is both his game and mind being reworked that McIlroy could go either way over the course of the next four days.

Always his own man, he has preferred not to lean on others too heavily, aside from long-time coach Michael Bannon and caddie and close friend Harry Diamond. But the early part of 2021 was an admission he needed help as he added swing coach Pete Cowen and psychologist Bob Rotella to his entourage.

The night after winning at Quail Hollow, he texted Cowen to admit he never expected such a quick turnaround in fortunes. In turn, Cowen’s post-tournament assessment was to turn his attention to his driver.

Getty Images

Last week, the pair focused on exactly that, the Yorkshireman concluding that if the driver works from today then “he should have a great chance in the PGA”.

The other septuagenarian in McIlroy’s corner will have played a role in 80 Major victories should his newest charge prove successful in the ensuing four days.

Rotella, who briefly worked with McIlroy back in 2010, fell into his role as “the godfather of sports psychology” almost by default, giving a talk to basketball coaches in New York, which was seen by someone from Golf Digest. Effectively, he’s been working in golf ever since.

His philosophy is quite simple - essentially, not to try so hard to win. He explained: “They [golfers] miss a lot of shots, they miss some putts that they could make, and yet they still win because they just keep going and that’s what you have to be able to do.”

The omens are particularly pertinent for McIlroy at Kiawah. It was here in 2012 that he won the first of his two PGA Championships on 13-under par. The next-best finisher was eight strokes back.

Much as Tiger Woods was accustomed to do in his prime, McIlroy made every other golfer in the field look mere mortals. It iss the sort of golf that has meant he carries with him a Woods-esque burden of expectation.

The joint philosophies of both Cowen and Rotella have clearly worked, or at least are working.

For a player as instinctive as McIlroy, it has taken time for him to get to this point but the sense of being his own man is changing. It is seen in both Cowen and Rotella but also in his reliance on caddie Diamond, previously seen by critics as a weak link in the chain.

It was telling that Diamond was singled out for praise in the aftermath of his win for a risky decision to take a penalty stroke at the 18th which in turn set up a better approach shot to the green.

The week before last was validation for his trust in a different approach but also those who have been by his side for so long, notably Diamond and Bannon.

This May stretch of the season is just the start of a new beginning. As McIlroy put it: “There’s so much more I want to achieve, so much more I want to do in the game. But it’s nice validation that I’m on the right track.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in