Rory McIlroy waited for his moment Sunday at Quail Hollow. And when the moment came, he didn’t stop.McIlroy went on a tear through the middle of the final round of the Wells Fargo Championship, making two eagles to play an eight-hole stretch in eight under and turn a one-shot deficit to Xander Schauffele to start the day into a five-shot win. According to stats guru Justin Ray, it’s McIlroy’s 14th come-from-behind win, six more than any other player since 2010.The World No. 2 finished at 17 under after a final-round 65 for his fourth career victory at Quail Hollow. It’s also McIlroy’s 26th PGA Tour victory and officially his second in a row after he won the Zurich Classic team event with Shane Lowry two weeks ago.“Quail Hollow, Charlotte in general has been really good to me over my career and this is just another great day to sort of add to all the rest of them,” McIlroy said. “I feel like these people have sort of watched me grow up from winning here as a 20-year-old to being the ripe old age of 35 now. They’ve sort of seen my progression throughout my career, and I’ve been lucky enough to win here four times. The support that I get here is absolutely amazing.”The last time McIlroy won his last two starts heading into a major was before his most recent major title at the 2014 PGA Championship, played at Valhalla, this year’s host site.
More importantly, that 2014 PGA Championship is the last time your humble blogger successfully picked the winner of a major... Rory was on a tear, and Valhalla in August couldn't help but be soft enough for his needs, plus he was on that tear.
Eight holes in eight under is just sick, but there's no player whose heaters are as impressive as this guy's, it's just that he seems to play his worst when he wants it the most.
The Tour Confidential panel tackles this event, but in quite the odd manner:
2. Rory McIlroy and Xander Schauffele battled it out in the final round of the Wells Fargo Championship, with McIlroy winning by five shots after an impressive six-under 65. A good confidence boost (for both) with the PGA Championship up next, or not quite so with the World No. 1 not at Quail Hollow?Barath: Both players separated themselves this week on a long and firm golf course, and itwould be hard not to come away from this event without a lot of confidence heading into the PGA Championship. Sure, Scottie wasn’t in the field this week, but you can only beat those who are in the field. Rory went ballistic on the back nine while Xander stalled, and hopefully this continues for Rory at the PGA.Dethier: Massive confidence boost! Nearly every good PGA Tour player teed it up at Quail Hollow and Xander Schauffele beat them all like a drum. All of ‘em except for Rory McIlroy, that is, and he proved to have far more offense when it mattered on Sunday. These guys both know winning the week before a major is no guarantee of anything — their most recent individual PGA Tour victories came at the 2023 (McIlroy) and 2022 (Schauffele) Genesis Scottish Invitationals, the week before the Open, which neither won. Still, short of Scheffler, who’s playing better golf?Piastowski: Very much so, especially for McIlroy, the World No. 2. Everything seemingly clicked, against 67 of the PGA Tour’s best, on a course that next year will host the PGA. But I’m also wondering about the Zurich and his win with pal Shane Lowry. McIlroy talked this week of being freed up now. That can mean a lot of different things. But maybe this is the result for McIlroy. And yeah, there are good vibes at Valhalla, where he last won a major.
They seem to think that both Rory and Xander walked off Quail Hollow feeling similarly, yet I'm guessing that Rory's dinner tasted better than X-man's. The latter hasn't won in two years and got run over yesterday, so finishing seems to be an issue. He squandered a meaningful 36-hole lead, which has become a pattern, and hasn't won in two years. Yet these guys think he's heading to Valhalla walking on air....
I've been a Rory skeptic for a while, and this dominating win doesn't really change anything. But I've checked the Louisville weather forecast and, combined with those 2014 vibes, it smells like the kind of week that's up Rory's alley. Almost no wind and humid conditions with a stray thunderstorm, which feels very much like Valhalla 2014 or Congressional 2011. It couldn't set up better for him, now he simply needs to do it on demand.
Rose In Full - This game will baffle us, as the young lady wins her first start, then goes on an extended walkabout. Hard to explain, but it sure seems as if she intends to stick around this time. The header is a bit odd, though:
Rose Zhang wins Founders Cup as Nelly Korda’s streak comes to unceremonious end
I'm pondering what a ceremonious ending would have looked like for Nelly. A marching band, perhaps, but does she belong in the header? I know she was justifiably the story heading into the event, but two girls separated themselves from the pack by a touchdown and two field goals, then Rose wins with a late sprint, so Nellie wasn't a story after the third round...
If there was to be a two-player Sunday duel at the Cognizant Founders Cup fueled by hot putters and world-class ball striking, most would have guessed it would have included Nelly Korda. After all, Korda had started the weekend just four off the lead and as the winner of her last five events, including the season’s first major at the Chevron ChampionshipInstead, it was the final pairing of Madelene Sagstrom and 21-year-old Rose Zhang who separated themselves from the pack, including the World No. 1.Then it was Zhang, who fell behind early but closed the gap and flipped the script with four birdies over her final five holes, who won the Cognizant Founders Cup by two over Sagstrom.“I’m still shaking right now. I think I never gave up. I always knew I had something in me to just grind it out, enjoy the time,” Zhang said on the 18th green after the win. “Madelene is an extremely solid player, she was basically hitting every single shot next to the hole, making putts. I had to prepare myself for the toughest challenge.”
Nellie is incredible and no doubt the only lady that can draw viewers right now, but she's gonna need a rival, and Rose might be the best bet.
Alas, this might be an even sillier question that the Rory/Xander bit:
5. Nelly Korda tied for seventh at the Cognizant Founders Cup — Rose Zhang edged Madelene Sagstrom to win — to end her streak of consecutive wins at five, which tied the all-time record. Korda’s remarkable run often evoked Caitlin Clark comparisons, or at least the conversation topic of if she could help elevate women’s golf like Clark did for women’s basketball. But do you think those comparisons were fair?Barath: Women’s golf needs more mainstream coverage if it wants to break further into the general sports landscape, and unfortunately it still gets second billing to things like the PGA Tour Champions circuit. I think with the right investment, the best LPGA Tour players could be just as recognizable as the best PGA Tour players, which is still miles behind other sports like the NBA.Dethier: I think the Caitlin Clark comps are well intentioned but misinformed. Korda has no team, no rival, no built-in fanbase, no March Madness tournament. I wrote about this earlier this week, but Korda has been right to point out that all she can do is keep playing top-tier golf — the sort she’s been playing — and let any boost happen naturally.Piastowski: Points well made by my colleagues. The comparison is convenient, as we’re also in the midst of Clark fever. But it’s on the shoulders of Korda’s tour, and the broadcasters of Korda’s tour, and the advertisers of Korda and Korda’s tour to get her name out there — because it sure seems like she’s doing her part.
But if Ryan thinks the LPGA will ever be competitive with the PGA Tour, I have some swampland for him to look at. That's actually dangerous thinking for the LPGA, because for them success comes through understanding their place in the golf ecosystem and carving out an audience where available.
It's easy to blame the networks and certainly checks off your virtue signaling requirement, but there's one niggling detail to factor in, to wit, when the girls are on, nobody tunes in. There, I've said it out loud, but they have to earn their viewership. They put on a good show yesterday, but it was maddingly hard to find on Golf Channel. Unfortunately, the need to keep it up and make the show sufficiently important to deserve a better time slot.
Valhalla On Our Mind - We'll gear up slowly for the fourth of four this week, first with the TC panel's thoughts:
1. The 2024 PGA Championship begins on Thursday at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Ky., where Scottie Scheffler will be the betting favorite and Brooks Koepka will defend his title. (There’s no word yet if Scheffler’s baby was born, but he’s on the interview schedule for Tuesday.) Any reason to think three weeks off could hinder Scheffler’s chances?Ryan Barath: At this point with Scottie’s game, I don’t think three weeks off, even when it includes the birth of your first child, will do any harm to his golf game. If he can come out and win the RBC Heritage the week after winning the Masters, and deal with the whirlwind whiplash from that, I think he’s going to come out ready to go at Valhalla.Dylan Dethier: As someone who just became a dad for the first time, I would say that’s the sort of thing that would throw off anybody’s golf game, even the World No. 1 — but I’m guessing we have different childcare setups. It certainly wouldn’t be a shock to see him contend. But we could forgive him if he showed up at Valhalla with something slightly less than his best stuff.Nick Piastowski: The three weeks off won’t be an issue. The child, though? Quite possibly. Thoughts will be elsewhere, understandably so. Then again, if he wins, days after becoming a new father, his legend grows even more.
What these guys seem to be saying is that Rory's win at Quail Hollow should come with an asterisk, no?
It's simply impossible to know whether Scottie will be there and be on his game, so I see no value in the speculation. But we have a full field in Louisville, and we don't get to enjoy that very often these days, so I'm looking forward to watching some of them grind to make the cut on Friday.
And questions that no one is asking:
4. The PGA will also be the first time we see Tiger Woods since he finished 60th at the Masters, and he’s returning to a course he won the PGA on in 2000. Does Woods finish better or worse than he did at Augusta?Barath: I hate counting Woods out, but Valhalla is very long, and the field as a whole is a lot stronger than the one he faced at the Masters So with all that factored in, I would be more surprised if he makes the cut, rather than missing it.Dethier: Better! Stop doubting this guy.Piastowski: I’ll go in the middle. Worse than the Masters, but only slightly and he makes the cut. The temps seem good — for the fans, for achy joints.
Did that which we saw at Augusta leave us wanting more? Yeah, not so much....
6. Let’s wrap with one final PGA preview question. What’s a juicy storyline no one is talking about right now?Dethier: Jordan Spieth seems injured and out of sorts — but he’s still going for the career grand slam! Don’t worry, though, nine good holes on Thursday and you’ll hear plenty about this.Barath: Wow, even I forgot about Spieth’s career grand slam chance here until you mentioned it, Dylan, but I’m gonna go with Rahm. He’s still searching for an individual win on LIV and he didn’t play that well at the Masters. If the PGA isn’t going well, we could be in for a very angry and frustrated golfer come Friday afternoon.Piastowski: This will get some run during the week, but club pro Tracy Phillips will be making his PGA Championship debut at the age of 61. But his story gets better. He once quit golf for 20 years, before being drawn back. Wild.
Twenty years off from golf? Don't tempt me....
I agree that Rahm is an interesting case, and I'll just add Talor Gooch. A man who's done nothing in the game believers it owes him a living, but this will be his only major of the year (unless he wins it), and he's never done anything in big events. If the golf gods are on their game, he'll be slamming a trunk on Friday....
Tour Stuff - A few bits on Tour governance and the like. before I get on with my day. First, this on the Rory board seat grab from the TC gang:
3. One story that dominated the pre-tournament chatter was the status of Webb Simpson’s seat on the PGA Tour Policy Board. Simpson previously tried to step down, but only if McIlroy would take his spot. That, however, didn’t happen, and Simpson is serving the remainder of his term. “There was a subset of people on the board that were maybe uncomfortable with me coming back on, for some reason,” McIlroy said. Reading between the lines, why wouldn’t some feel comfortable with McIlroy coming back on? Could he help golf’s division? And, finally, do you have any issue with him rejoining after he resigned his spot months ago?Barath: A couple of things here. First off, even as someone who pays close attention to the men’s professional game, all of this is just an absolute slog, and at this point, I just want someone to wake me up once this whole thing is sorted and done with. Secondly, when it comes to people being uncomfortable, I believe there is a big schism between those who are OK with letting some of the PGA Tour history die so that there can finally be a true world tour, and those who still want to keep the PGA mostly structured the way that it is now. Saying that, I think Rory has made it clear that he’s on the side of the world tour, and is ready to negotiate with the Saudi PIF and bring all of the best players back together, while others aren’t quite ready to lose out on their share if that happens. As for coming back, Rory appears to be thinking a lot longer term, and for that reason, if he wants to come back in some capacity, he should be able to.Dethier: As it turns out, though, McIlroy is a member — albeit a non-voting member — of the transactions subcommittee, which [pause for yawn] is actually doing the meaningful negotiating with the Saudis. It would have been sort of weird to reinstate McIlroy on the board after he’d stepped away just months ago. But he still seems a key figure in the process.Piastowski: Bunch of light questions here! Let’s try to answer ’em, though. The uncomfortability? Tough to say without hearing from the sources. Maybe it’s that McIlroy once left the board and his commitment is still questioned. Maybe it’s a situation that Barath describes, where McIlroy wants a world tour, and others don’t. All good theories. Could he help golf’s division? You bet — and as Dethier notes, he will be, as part of the transactions committee. (Lots of committees these days!) The move is a good one, should you want an agreement. McIlroy has previously said he has at least some sort of relationship with Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund. Any issue with him rejoining? Maybe a little. If it’s as simple as Simpson wanting McIlroy his spot, and McIlroy accepting, I think that’s OK.
I think it's a remake of Mean Girls, with Cantlay in the Wynona Ryder role.... But that my predication that we'd end up hating all these guys is looking pretty good, as the tearful resignation followed by the extrajudicial swap with Webb Simpson looks pretty needy on Rory's part.
Given his starring role as a useful idiot, I actually don't know why anyone would care what Rory thinks at this point.
Eamon Lynch has what seems to be an overly-optimistic take on the current state of play:
Lynch: The PGA Tour’s new committee will be mocked, but it’s the last hope for grown-ups to take charge
Grown-ups? I thought I had heard that Rory was on it?
Eamon always has the best ledes in the biz:
Committees often have about as much utility as ashtrays on motorcycles, and in golf usually serve only as a mechanism to butcher great courses and honor the milquetoast. On occasion, however, they can be impactful. The three-man panel that negotiated the PGA Tour’s Framework Agreement with the Saudis last summer certainly made an impression, not least because other Policy Board members didn’t know of its existence nor much care for its output.
Ashtrays n motorcycles, eh? Missed that one on my bingo card.
The backlash to that secretive process sparked a time-consuming and overdue governance reviewthat is essential as the Tour shapeshifts from an indolent non-profit with complacent members into a modern league with shareholders and investors. A handful of oversight committees have now been established at PGA Tour Enterprises, the for-profit entity that runs the business. Most are standard operating procedurals, but one panel in particular suggests the Tour is about to move beyond childish bickering and begin letting grown-ups shape its future.The Transaction Subcommittee’s anodyne name belies its importance. It will handle talks with the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia on a potential deal and make a recommendation to the full Policy Board — one the politburo is unlikely to reject from its hand-picked negotiators. Committee members include Enterprises chairman Joe Gorder, commissioner Jay Monahan and John Henry, the principal of Strategic Sports Group, which just invested a billion-five into the product. There are also four players: Joe Ogilvie (retired, and now a humble money manager), Tiger Woods, Adam Scott and Rory McIlroy. In short, a lot of people unaccustomed to making business calls by committee.
But are the "adults" even on speaking terms with each other?
No one is on the panel to present moral arguments about being in business with a despot. Those who harbor any such reservations will check them at the door and treat negotiations as a matter of commerce, not conscience. But it is at least a committee of adults, something sorely needed in this sorry mess.
So the lack of moral reservations is a good thing? Or will they just focus on ensuring that Adam Scott gets all the sponsors' exemptions he needs?
The PGA Tour has been consumed with dual crises, one internal, one ex-. The latter is obvious — the LIV threat, caused by the depth of Saudi pockets and the shallowness of character among the Tour’s own membership. The internal dispute mostly remained behind boardroom doors until spilling into the open this week when a faction of player-directors (Woods, Patrick Cantlay and Jordan Spieth) blocked an effort to reappoint McIlroy to the Policy Board he left six months ago.The rebuff wasn’t unjustified. There must be a legitimate and transparent process governing board appointments and having Webb Simpson nominate McIlroy as his successor ain’t either. Still, there was no hand-wringing when Woods was added to the board in the middle of the night, the only member without (still) an expiration date for his term. The Pope of Ponte Vedra serves at his own discretion, it seems. But the stiff-arming of McIlroy exposed how personal grievances have masqueraded as governance concerns.
OK, but by all accounts that Cantlay fellow doesn't want a deal, so do we think this Committee can prevail over the terrific penis? And should we interpret Rory's attempted resurrection as a trial run in that conflict?
Here's Eamon's take on that:
There are ample misgivings about how the Tour is run and most are genuinely held and valid. But some guys just remain angry at being blindsided by the Framework Agreement, while others are pissed because they left LIV’s millions on the table and know their moment has passed. They want the heads of those who architected the June 6 deal — Monahan, Ed Herlihy and Jimmy Dunne — and the thirst for retribution has paralyzed the organization at a perilous time.That faction sees McIlroy as too close to their nemeses, but in balking at his return to the board they might have overplayed their hand. A public perception now exists that the Cantlay camp wields power, which means that credit for progress — or, more likely, blame for a lack thereof — is destined for the same desks.
Cantlay and Spieth (perhaps) seem to like the spot they're in right now, with Saudi-level money but no moral ramifications and fewer top players to compete with in the money grabs. So, Eamon, tell me how this gets approved without those two votes.
This isn't exactly a rave endorsment of Rory's role:
Thus McIlroy now finds himself used by both sides. Having long been a proxy for executives in fighting the public battle against LIV, he is now seconded to the Transactions Committee as a convenient means of providing cover for the players who didn’t want him to have a board vote, but who fear even more scrutiny for having rejected him. The Tour is fortunate that he’s sufficiently toughened (or soft) to endure its maladroit bungling in his effort to contribute to a solution. McIlroy’s relationships with stakeholders on both sides will be useful to the committee, but not enough to single-handedly forge a settlement in golf’s civil war. Even a good-faith effort might still mean the Tour moves forward without a toxic association with the PIF.
I've been calling him an useful idiot since June 6th. Now he seems willing and able to be used by both sides, so we've got that going for us...
Meanwhile, back here on Planet Earth, the Faceplant Tour™ continues to yield predictable results:
Long-standing sponsor issues ominous threat to PGA Tour
First reportedly by ScoreGolf.com, RBC is refusing to commit to a multi-year extension of its current deal with the mainly US-based circuit until such times as changes are made.The Royal Bank of Canada is understood to have paid the PGA Tour an eye-watering $25m to be the title sponsor for last month’s BC Heritage on Hilton Head Island and the upcoming RBC Canadian Open.It has bankrolled the latter since 2008, saving the event from possible oblivion, and added the former to its portfolio in 2012.However, with both deals up after this year and until such times as it gets some guarantees on the future of the PGA Tour specifically and men’s professional golf more broadly, the bank is refusing to spend another dime.
Yeah, why would they? The business is in freefall, and the Tour keeps demanding more an delivering less....
Although this is quite the slam:
“It’s like they’re flying the plane and building it at the same time,” added DePaoli. “If some of these outstanding questions can resolve themselves in the short to medium term, and we can start to put some of the static and changes that a lot of people were not too pleased with behind us, professional men’s golf can get back on track and going in a positive direction again.
I think they just got compared to Boeing, which seems pretty damn apt...
They also sponsor a gaggle of players, who have effed them pretty good. DJ is often credited as having gone to LIV without trashing things on the way out the door. But, while that might be true for the Tour, he left the week of RBC's flagship Canadian Open, so a nice way to treat them after cashing years of checks.
I'll just embed this as our final bit:
That's it for today. We'll have PGA coverage as the week unfolds.There are a lot of really great golf photos, but this may be the best ever. https://t.co/AqvIEkQ6W4
— Zack Z (@ZZGolfs402) May 11, 2024
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