It is not so much that Rory McIlroy has regained the No. 1 ranking in the world after his impressive victory in the CJ Cup in South Carolina at Congaree Golf Club – the eye test has been telling the world what the computer has been slow to validate for a few weeks now – but what stands out is how many times McIlroy has found himself as king of golf’s hill.
This is the ninth different time McIlroy has been No. 1 in the world. Only Greg Norman and Tiger Woods (who spent a combined 1,014 weeks atop the rankings) ascended to the top more often, each of them doing it 11 different times.
Just over a year ago, McIlroy had tumbled to 16th in the world, his game scattered. After a bitterly disappointing performance for Europe in the Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits, the Northern Irishman decided to follow his own instincts and get back to playing what felt like a more comfortable kind of golf.
“I’ve worked so hard over the last 12 months to get myself back to this place,” said McIlroy, who shot a final-round 4-under 67 Sunday in South Carolina for a 267 total and one-stroke victory over American Kurt Kitayama. “I feel like I’m enjoying the game as much as I ever have. I absolutely love the game of golf. If I play with that joy, it has shown over these last 12 months.”
The victory, his 23rd on the PGA Tour, was McIlroy’s fourth in the past 12 months. He won the CJ Cup last October in Las Vegas and won the RBC Canadian Open and Tour Championship before successfully defending his CJ Cup title. He also finished in the top 10 of all four major championships this year.
It also comes near the end of a tumultuous year in which McIlroy found himself in the center of the professional golf storm swirling around LIV Golf’s challenge to the PGA and DP World tours.
“It sort of illustrates you can have your runs and you can stay there, but I think the cool part is the journey and the journey getting back there. It's sort of like a heavyweight boxer losing a world title, and it's a journey to get that title back. I feel like that's the cool part of it, and that's the journey that I've sort of been through over the past 12 months,” said McIlroy, who displaced Scottie Scheffler, who took the No. 1 spot in late March.
McIlroy became the No. 1 player in the world for the first time after he won the 2012 Honda Classic. It had become an attainable goal after he won the 2011 U.S. Open at Congressional, his first of four major titles in a four-year stretch.
Once he got to No. 1, McIlroy found the reality different from what he imagined.
“I remember waking up the next morning and being like, is this it? You work towards a goal for so long and then you wake up the next day and you don't feel any different after having achieved it,” McIlroy said.
“So, I think then it's a matter of having to reframe your goals and reframe what success looks like. I think that's one of the great things about this game, no matter how much you've achieved or how much success you've had, you always want to do something else. There's always something else to do.
“I guess that's where I say, like, the cool thing about it is you get to No. 1 and it feels great in the moment, and the bad thing is you almost … maybe work harder to stay there.”
Ron Green Jr.