KIAWAH ISLAND, SC – So this is what Rory McIlroy does for an encore, reduce another reputedly unconquerable golf course to mere flotsam and jetsam en route to a second major victory, this time the 2012 PGA Championship. Europe’s proper rejoinder to Tiger Woods turned Pete Dye’s supposedly Ram-tough Kiawah Island Ocean Course into a Tonka toy and ran away from the field in the final round like Usain Bolt, cruising to an eight shot victory over back-door second place finisher David Lynn of England.
“It was an absolute tour de force,” praised the PGA of America’s Kelly Elbin, who also announced that McIlroy shattered the PGA Championship records for largest margin of victory, (formerly owned by Jack Nicklaus at Oak Hill in 1980), and youngest champion since the tournament returned to stroke play in 1958. As if that isn’t enough historical context to impress even the most jaded golf fan, consider that only four other golfers have won two major championships at a younger age (23) – Jack Nicklaus, Seve Ballesteros, Gene Sarazen, and Young Tom Morris.
“I don’t really care if I win by one or if I win by eight, I just want to win and I was able to do that today,” said a beaming McIlroy as he posed with the PGA Championship trophy.
McIlroy’s line score for the week was a dazzling 67-75-67-66=275, 13-under par.
“If you’d have told me twenty years ago someone would do that to this course I would have blown a snot bubble at you,” joked CBS funny man and broadcaster David Feherty.
“Dominant,” was the description countless other golfers, writers, and fans called it. McIlroy’s lone over-par blemish on Friday was attributable more to 30 mile per hour winds that blew the field scoring average to a bloated 78.1.
“That was like Muirfield [for 2002 British Open] it was so bad,” confided Tiger Woods, who watched helplessly as McIlroy played the weekend 15 shots better than he.
“Tiger needs his A Game to come up against Rory,” chirped a proud and puckish 2008 PGA Championship winner Padraig Harrington.
McIlroy candidly attributed part of his Tiger-esque performance to the soft, benign conditions that a rain soaked Ocean Course presented.
“The conditions made the difference,” he asserted. “You know, we had a lot of overnight rain a lot of the nights. And you know, if this golf course was firm, the scoring wouldn’t be anywhere near what it was. And you know, I’ve seen a few clips of The Ryder Cup in’91, and it looked very windy and it looked very dry.”
Even so, the rest of the field had exactly the same conditions. They had to endure with incessant rain delays which ultimately postponed completion of the third round until early Sunday morning, they had to survive a vicious crosswind on Friday that made the supermodel slim fairways nigh impossible to hit, and they had to dodge alligators that ate everything from snakes to the CBS microphones.
The crocs may have eaten the mics, but Rory ate everyone else, and had the Wanamaker trophy for dessert.
“He was absolutely killing it. I saw after the British Open that he was putting it all together. I knew he was going to destroy it soon, within two or three weeks,” said McIlroy’s caddie J.P. Fitzgerald. “He played so good in practice, he had a 75 on Friday when he could have had an 80, and today was an exhibition. I am so proud of him.
Indeed, the final round was an exhibition. On the few occasions McIlroy missed, he missed in the right places so up-and-downs were routine, and his putter was sizzling all week. The lone exception on Sunday was an awkward chip on nine from well below the hole at the second hardest hole on the course.
“He got that up and down and that was the defining moment,” added FitzGerald. “He birdied 12 and that was what put it away.”
“Now he’s a superstar,” added fellow countryman and good friend Graeme McDowell. “He looked up to Tiger. Now kids look up to him.”
The story of the tournament is incomplete without praising two other golfers as well. Sweden’s Carl Petterson played brilliantly all weekend, only to suffer a brutally bad break on the first hole of the final round. With his ball in a hazard, Petterson accidentally moved a leaf on his backswing, costing him not only a two shot penalty, but sole possession of second place and $480,500 in prize money.
“The rule is fair because if you have it so it’s not a penalty, people would be able to improve the path of their downswing and have a chance at a cleaner ball strike. It’s not stupid, and it can’t be changed. It’s just unfortunate and I have to take it on the chin….or chins as the case may be,” quipped the portly, but honest and self-effacing Petterson in a small media scrum after the round.
“Sucks for me,” he lamented. Petterson finished at 4-under 284, tied with Justin Rose, defending champion Keegan Bradley, and Ian Poulter.
Poulter grabbed the day’s other major headlines, shockingly carding eight birdies in the first 12 holes of the final round and reaching 8-under before finally running out of bullets for the gun, bogeying four of the closing five holes, and fading back to 4-under. It was a letdown in some ways. For a while it looked like he might not only shoot 62 and seize sole possession of professional golf’s major championship scoring record, but in doing so he’s silence, (we hope), Johnny Miller’s incessant braggadocio about his closing 63 at Oakmont in 1973.
“That would have been quite the double whammy,” observed one sportswriter on his Twitter feed.
But only Rory was able to avoid the streak of bogeys that plagued every other player in the field at some point in the rain-soaked tournament. His opening and closing rounds were clean cards – five birdies, no bogeys on Thursday, six birdies, no bogeys on Sunday. It was a virtuoso performance, and all the coast of Carolina rang with the cheering – “Ro-ry! Ro-ry! Ro-ry!” – just as Congressional did 14 months ago, where he also won by a stunning eight shots and broke nearly every major scoring record, including several that, at the time, belonged to Tiger Woods.
So it will be more Red Breast Irish Whiskey and John Smith’s Smooth and a “party for the Paddies,” (as Rory put it last year), this time out of a much bigger trophy. Then it will be off to his next major, the U.S. Open…the U.S. Tennis Open, that is. As he left in time enough to make sure his drink didn’t get warm and his girl didn’t get cold, he gave us with one last poignant thought:
“To win my second major and get to world No. 1 all in the same day is very special,” he said. “To sit up here and see this trophy and call myself a multiple major champion…I’m privileged to join such an elite list of names.”
NEWS, NOTES, AND QUOTES
This was as rainy a PGA Championship as Oakland Hills in 2008 when 36 holes were played on Sunday by many players, and almost as rain-soaked as Baltusrol in 2005 which saw a Monday finish. Happily is was nowhere near as bad as the 2009 Bathpage U.S. Open…err…Bethpage U.S. Open.
FIRST EIGHT SET FOR U.S. RYDER CUP TEAM: The first eight berths have been earned on the 2012 U.S. Ryder Cup Team. The U.S. Points list was concluded at the end of play today, with these players set to compete against Europe at Medinah (Ill.) Country Club:
Tiger Woods (It will be his seventh Ryder Cup)
Bubba Watson (It will be his second straight Ryder Cup)
Jason Dufner (Ryder Cup debut)
Keegan Bradley (Ryder Cup debut)
Webb Simpson (Ryder Cup debut)
Zach Johnson (It will be his third Ryder Cup)
Matt Kuchar (It will be his second straight Ryder Cup)
Phil Mickelson (It will be his ninth straight Ryder Cup appearance, which sets the U.S. Team record for most consecutive appearances, and most all-time appearances)
U.S. Ryder Cup Team Captain Love will select the final four members of the Team on Sept. 4, and the 39th Ryder Cup will take place Sept. 28-30 at Medinah (Ill.) Country Club.
