McIlroy masters Crooked Stick

    Sunday, September 9, 2012
    Writing from Carmel, Indiana

    The best golf courses produce the best champions, those who have a complete game that can stand up in the heat of a final round.
    Crooked Stick Golf Club did that on Sunday, when a rollicking festival of eagles and birdies called the BMW Championship – the 109th edition of the Western Open of yore – brought forth Rory McIlroy as the champion golfer of 2012.
    He’s not bad, this McIlroy. The 23-year-old product of Northern Ireland won three times in his last four starts, including an eight-stroke victory at the PGA Championship last month. He’s the top-ranked player in the world. He’s the future of the game, and the present as well.
    He beat the rest of the best players in the world by scoring 5-under-par 67 in the final round for an aggregate score of 20-under-par 268. The margin was two strokes over Phil Mickelson and Lee Westwood, three over Tiger Woods and Robert Garrigus, and four over Dustin Johnson and Adam Scott.
    McIlroy won by hitting 51 greens, 41 of 56 fairways, needing only 108 putts – three-putting only twice – and never stepping into a bunker all week. That likely hasn’t been accomplished by a winner in any event of significance since Tiger Woods did so at the Old Course in annexing the 2000 British Open, the second victory in his Grand Slam.
    McIlroy made six birdies in the final round befor a harmless bogey at the last, and never made a putt of significant length among those birdies.
    “I didn’t need to,” he agreed. “The ball-striking was good. It was a big turnaround from yesterday, which was very nice.”
    It’s fair to say he had his A game from tee to green and a B-minus game on the greens, and the combination was good enough to hold off the fastest field seen in this venerable championship in the six years the Western has been played as the BMW, and as the third round of the playoffs for the FedEx Cup.
    “The difference is the ability to save par,” McIlroy said of his late-summer surge. “A few up-and-downs yesterday gave me the ability to win this tournament.”
    That, and a slight adjustment in his swing after Saturday’s 3-under 69, when he scrambled while hitting only 8-of-14 fairways and only half the greens. He discovered his body was spinning too fast, and made a change. The result: 13-of-14 fairways hit on Sunday.
    “The club was late catching up and I was hitting everything to the right,” McIlroy said of Saturday’s adventure. “Just a little bit of timing, waiting on it at the top of the backswing and releasing it, that straightened up the driver a lot today.
    “The thing about the last two weeks, I’ve just played with complete trust and complete confidence in my ability.”
    McIlroy started the day a stroke behind Mickelson and Vijay Singh. He took the lead with a 4-foot, 8-inch birdie putt on the par-4 10th hole, getting to 19-under. A par save on 14 kept his momentum going, and birdies on the 15th and 16th got him to 21-under sealed the victory. While many threatened, only Westwood and Mickelson took it as deep at 19-under, and for only one hole each. McIlroy was in another world, much like Woods used to be.
    “The more you put yourself in this position and the more you win and the more you pick up trophies, it becomes normal, and it feels like this is what you’re supposed to do,” McIlroy said. “I don’t I’m quite there (to Woods’ previous level) yet, but I’m getting to that stage where I’m thinking, this is what I should be doing. I should be lifting a trophy at the end of the week.”
    This trophy is the J.K. Wadley Trophy, one of the more iconic in the game. In a fortnight, McIlroy may be lifting the FedEx Cup, one of the more garish in the game.
    “I’m going to keep the run going as long as possible,” McIlroy said.
    His peers had nothing but praise for him.
    “A lot of people stayed in neutral and Rory geared ahead,” said Mickelson, whose tie for second at 18-under 270 is his best in the BMW / Western. “He’s playing great, and he’s going to be tough at East Lake.”
    “He’s just maturing all the time,” said Westwood, who matched Mickelson at 270 while playing with McIlroy. “He’s just a very, very good player.”
    And Woods, who has praised him lavishly of late, continued in that vein.
    “He’s doing the things he needs to do,” Woods said. “He’s really playing well and he’s making a ton of putts. That’s a great combo.”
    To go with an impossibly great future.
    – Tim Cronin