Rory's Glory (6 page)

The Holywood youngster's jaw dropped in astonishment after his tee shot, hit with a wedge, flew right over the island green and disappeared into the dark green water. McIlroy turned and looked at his caddie, JP Fitzgerald, in disbelief. ‘Did you ever see a wedge fly 150 yards,' he was still asking as he left the recorder's hut after signing for a first round 74.

This is what Rory felt about his first ever dice with the dreaded 17
^th
of Sawgrass:

It was 148 yards to the pin today. I hit a wedge and just flew the lot. I don't know if I got a gust or something. I wasn't going big with my third shot from the drop zone. I spun it back to the front and took three to get down.

Rory was two under coming to that 17
^th
hole. Less than half an hour later, he finished his round +2. The next day, Rory missed the cut. This time he got through it unscathed but the rest of his round was not so good.

He signed for a +5, 77 in a round that included 5 bogeys and a double bogey seven at the par-five 9
^th
hole. The course had left a bitter taste in Rory's mouth. Without any question, it was the dreaded 17
^th
which caused all the problems to begin with and sent Rory home.'

Things did not get any better in 2012 as Rory missed a second succesive cut at the Players Championship. He may have mastered it in its ‘virtual' format on screen, but the ‘live' fresh air version is something that Rory continues to struggle with.

T
he missed cut at the 2012 Players Championship followed on from Rory popping back across the Atlantic to play the BMW at Wentworth, where he also missed the cut with rounds of 74 and 79.

It set in motion a miserable sequence of events and ‘M/C's. Three weeks after Sawgrass, he missed another cut on the US Tour before finishing seventh in the St Jude Classic. He may have been buoyed by that but it was only a temporary respite, as worse was to follow.

Rory teed off at the Olympic Club in San Francisco on 14 June in defence of his US Open crown in a very good frame of mind thanks to St Jude. But it was to be a lost cause. He was all at sea in a first round horror 77.

He improved marginally the next day by shooting 73 but it was too little, too late. Rory would not be defending his crown over the weekend. For a holder of a major, that was somewhat embarrassing. Defending champions do their utmost to play the full event.

Two weeks later, girlfriend Caroline Wozniacki joined Rory for the Irish Open. Amid all the frustration, Rory's smiles shone again with the help and urgings of a partisan home crowd.

Rounds of 70, 69 qualified him for the weekend and although he hit a disappointing 71 on moving day, a magnificent -5, 67 on Sunday shot him up to a tie for 10
^th
place. It was just the tonic he needed for the British Open, three weeks later.

Another great fillip was the addition of Michael Bannon to Rory's team. Bannon had coached Rory since he was a boy but was now only occasionally helping out. But an SOS had been sent out to Bannon.

A full time golf teacher and coach in Bangor, Northern Ireland, he left that position to join McIlroy on tour as his new full time coach. Both were caught on BBC television cameras at the Open. The pair worked on various aspects of Rory's swing.

His game looked like it was in need of a lot of work as he finished way down the field with the also-rans and, if seasons are measured in terms of majors (which Rory's are), then this one scored ‘woeful'.

Tied 40
^th
in the Masters, M/C in the US Open and tied 60
^th
in the British Open was just not good enough for a player tipped to be one of the all-time greats of golf. He had one chance left in the USPGA. Whatever issues Rory had, they had to be sorted – and fast.

The Bridgestone Invitational two weeks later was the last event before the USPGA the following week. It looked like he was struggling again after an even-par round of 70 to start. But rounds of 67, 67 and 68 meant he finished in a tie for fifth without threatening.

It was promising; so much so that London's ‘Racing Post' newspaper picked Rory as one of their selections to win the final major of the year. They touted his hitting the ball 344 yards at the Bridgestone, adding that if his putting was better, he would have won.

That aside, a pattern was emerging. Some terrible performances were followed by a Top 10 finish but he could not seem to string two good results together. Then the USPGA arrived, an event for which he did have an excellent record.

In three previous attempts at the USPGA, Rory was actually in with a great chance of winning. His debut at Hazeltine GC, Minnesota, in 2009 saw near record crowds turn up to watch the 91
^st
running of what is traditionally the season-ending major.

Tiger Woods opened up with a -5, 67 in the first round to lead by one shot from Padraig Harrington. Rory shot a -1, 71 and he was quite content with his very first performance in the event, especially since Hazeltine is a tough course.

A second round of +1, 73 left him well off the pace as Woods increased his lead at the top to seven under, but another round of 71 on the third day put him back into under par figures for the tournament and he was not out of it.

He shot another nice round on the final day. But a -2, 70 was never going to trouble Tiger Woods and Y E Yang, and Rory finished his first USPGA at three under in a tie for third place with Lee Westwood.

Woods, who led going into the final round and seemed sure to add yet another major to his haul, buckled under the pressure of Yang's dogged persistence. The Korean matched him shot for shot and eventually won by three shots on eight under par.

Yang became the first Asian to win the USPGA but it was a case of what might have been for another Irishman. Behind Tiger Woods going into that final round, Padraig Harrington actually started the day level with Yang.

However, when he looks back on this particular event, he will wish to forget in a hurry the horror that befell him on a fairly easy par three. Padraig blew his chances of winning a fourth major by running up a ‘quintuple-bogey' eight on that eighth hole!

Rory admitted to showing very poor judgement on the greens. He started with a double-bogey but then hit a rich vein of form by rattling in four birdies. Another bogey on the 12
^th
, and some missed opportunities, put paid to his chance of victory.

Nevertheless, it was his highest finish in a major to date and summing up, he said:

I've had some good results lately and I'm looking to build on these results next year and hopefully try to do a bit better. I think coming into this week, I didn't have my best form or my best game with me. So to finish tied third is a great result for me.

Onto 2010 at Whistling Straits, and Rory would come even closer to winning the USPGA. He did indeed build on his impressive debut from the previous year and by the time he left Whistling Straits, he could only think of how close he came to victory.

Similar to Hazeltine the previous year, he opened with a pretty ordinary 71. He followed that with a -4, 68 in the second round to lie on five under par at the halfway mark. It was also a case of two cuts made from two in the USPGA.

Leader Matt Kuchar on eight under par led by a shot from Nick Watney so Rory was in a nice position with two days to go. Watney, though, had other ideas. On ‘moving day', he put space between himself and the rest of the field by shooting a magnificent 66 to go to -13.

Not to be outdone, and keeping himself very much in the hunt, Rory shot 67 and was only three shots back on -10. He was level with Dustin Johnson and both would play in the second-to-last pairing on the final day.

Alas, and for the second year running, things just did not swing Rory's way. Although he got the better of Watney, who fell apart with a final round 81, Bubba Watson shot a final round 68 to join Martin Kaymer in a playoff at -11.

Agonisingly, Rory had finished just a single shot adrift. Although he had tied third yet again, it was hard for him to stomach the fact that he had failed to break par in the last round. Had he managed to do so, he would have gone close to winning. He said:

I'm ok. I had a few bad swings the first few holes and I managed to recover well. After those escapes, I had a few chances that went by on the back nine. It was just one of those days when I felt I hit good putts but nothing went in. I'm pleased overall as I played nicely all week and I just needed to find one more shot in there on any of the four days, which is disappointing.

I was very proud at how I ground it out. It wasn't the start that I would have wanted. I made a great up and down at the first hole and another great up and down at the third and I held it together on the front nine.

There was however one worrying aspect concerning something else he said. In light of what would eventually happen to him in the last round of his ‘Masters Meltdown', it was very significant that he admitted to feeling the heat as he went out for the final round:

It was my first time being in contention in the last round of a major and in the second-to-last group. I was feeling it on the first tee and it was a new experience for me. Hopefully it will stand me in good stead for the future.

Tying third in his first two USPGA's, one could see the reasons why Rory now fancied himself to win it in future. He stated as such before the 2011 event but the drama that would unfold there was something that no-one, least of all Rory, could see coming.

Going into the event at the Atlanta Athletic Club course, he must have been quietly confident. The omens also looked good when he was paired with fellow countryman Darren Clarke. Very quickly, it turned into an event full of controversy.

On the third hole, Rory hit his tee shot into the semi rough. But unknown to him, to the television crews and to the watching millions, an amazing thing happened. A small boy walked over to his ball and picked it up!

Before Rory arrived on the scene, the child's parents told the toddler to put it back where he had found it. The drama was only beginning. The young child placed the ball at the foot of a tree.

Although the ball was in a very tricky position nestled directly behind a tree, Rory saw no great cause for alarm. Like almost every golfer on the planet who has at some stage encountered this scenario – amateur and professional – he knew he had a few options.

Normally it boils down to two – have a good firm go at it or take the safe choice and play it out gently onto the fairway. There is a third – taking a penalty drop – but Rory, after surveying the ball, and feeling it was sitting up nicely, decided to have a go.

After giving the ball a good strong strike, it ricocheted up into the air and came to rest just a few feet away with his club flying through the air. The latter was actually part of the plan as he later explained:

It was dangerous. I thought if I could make contact with the ball and just let the club go, I might get away with it. It was a shot that I felt like, if I took it on and pulled it off, it could have saved me a shot.

Grasping his wrist in pain however, it soon became clear that something bad had happened. Just underneath the ball, and invisible to the eye, was the root of a tree. Any gardener will testify that it must have been like striking hard rock or stone.

Rory immediately called for ice and was also given the option of a ten minute time-out, which he refused. Returning to his ball, which was now a little way back from the tree, he decided this time to hit out and put bend on the ball.

He played it very well leaving an up-and-down for bogey. Furthermore, and after his second shot from behind the tree, there seemed to be no adverse effect from his injury, and so he carried on with an ice-pack wrapped around his wrist and forearm.

A discussion with officials about getting his club repaired showed that he was almost certainly going to complete his round. But there was more cause for worry, as on the follow through from his tee shot on the fourth hole he winced in pain.

But again he soldiered on. So much so that the crowd warmed to him on the fifth as he chatted with Darren Clarke. Grimacing again after his tee shot there, the crowd shouted, ‘“hang in there Rory'”, to which he replied several times, “thank you”.

It was also quite noticeable that he had no strength in his right hand because of the pain in his arm. When bending down to stick his tee in the ground, he winced in pain and had to put the tee into his left hand to shove it into the ground.

Through all his trials and tribulations, his talent and genius was about to shine through once more. He splashed out of a bunker to within a foot for a tap-in birdie and he made it consecutive birdies on the sixth.

Comparisons were being made with Tiger Woods who famously won a major on one leg! The golf media were quickly latching on to the fact that Rory had gone from one over to one under on one arm!

And so his dramatic day continued. His fascinating and intriguing round was followed by bogeys and birdies and a physio accompanied Rory for a few holes before deeming him fit to continue. He ended with a par 70 which was a fantastic effort in the circumstances.

Rory was seemingly ok to continue his USPGA but reflecting back on his opening round, and particularly that third hole, he admitted: ‘It was a mistake in judgment'.

After entering the Atlanta Athletic Club clubhouse for a few minutes, he brought out some extra wet towels from the locker room. He then got into the back seat of his courtesy car, driven by friend and associate Stuart Cage, and it was off to the doctors.

An MRI scan late on Thursday night showed no long term damage. A strained tendon in his right wrist was diagnosed and, to great applause, Rory appeared on the tee on Friday morning. Before that, he said:

If it wasn't a major, I probably would have stopped yesterday. To be honest, looking at the scans, they said, ‘Look, you can't do any more damage to it, it's up to yourself. If you want to play and you feel as though you can play ok and carry on, then do. And if not, then you shouldn't play.' I feel as if I can play, so the decision was purely up to me.