It was April Fools’ Day and Rory McIlroy found himself with the weekend off after missing the cut at the Valero Texas Open in his final pre-Masters start.
To make matters worse, McIlroy couldn’t get out of San Antonio on Friday night, so he had to stay over and his hotel was so busy that the wait for a room-service order was more than two hours.
So, McIlroy went to bed on an empty stomach and with a simple thought in mind: Let's just wake up tomorrow and start again, he remembers thinking.
Nearly eight months later, McIlroy is back atop the world rankings with three PGA Tour victories this year and recently became just the second player (Henrik Stenson was the first) to win both the FedEx Cup and the DP World Championship in the same season. He did it all while taking center stage as the voice of the PGA Tour in its ongoing struggle with LIV Golf’s emergence.
For all of that, McIlroy is Global Golf Post’s men’s player of the year for 2022, earning the honor over Scottie Scheffler and Cameron Smith – who each had remarkable seasons of their own.
McIlroy finished among the top 10 in all four major championships, and though he didn’t win on the DP World Tour, he emerged as the dominant force in golf on and off the course.
He won the RBC Canadian Open, the Tour Championship and the CJ Cup and finished in the top 10 in 10 of his 16 PGA Tour starts. Well into the second decade of his career, McIlroy, 34, of Northern Ireland, evolved into a more well-rounded player than before.
“I didn't win one of the big four, but second at Augusta, third at the Open, fifth at the U.S. Open and eighth at the PGA, it's been very consistent,†McIlroy said. “I've said this year felt very similar to 2019, very similar numbers in terms of strokes gained. If anything, I was a little better this year stats-wise. Better around the greens. Definitely putted better.â€
While McIlroy can point to his lost weekend in Texas as a turning point, the change began in 2021. He had dropped to 16th in the Official World Golf Ranking when the FedEx Cup playoffs began last year, and he found himself in tears after Europe’s lopsided loss in the Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits, where McIlroy posted a 1-3-0 record.
“It's never fun to feel like you're not getting the best out of yourself,†McIlroy said earlier this year. “Ryder Cup was like a hard reset for me, and I sort of had to think about things and ask myself some tough questions, and thankfully I've come out the other side of it and I'm better for that experience.â€
Working with his long-time swing coach Michael Bannon and putting coach Brad Faxon, McIlroy developed a sense of momentum that may have begun when he holed a bunker shot on the 72nd hole of the Masters in April, and it has grown through the year.
There were disappointments – letting the Open Championship at St. Andrews slip his grasp on Sunday was the biggest – but McIlroy kept pushing forward. When he won the CJ Cup in October, it was the ninth time McIlroy ascended to No. 1.
“I feel like if my driving is not on one day, I feel like my putting will bail me out,†he said. “I feel like if my putting is not on, my iron play will bail me out, and if my iron play is not on, my short game will – so again, I used to rely very heavily on one or two aspects of the game where now, I feel like now I'm pretty efficient at all areas of the game.
“And that's been a huge thing this year. I think when you know that you're a putter or you know that you're going to hole your fair share of putts, I think it takes pressure off your ball-striking. You don't feel like you have to hit it quite as close, and then off the tee, you don't feel as under pressure to hit fairways to then hit a green to give yourself a chance. I feel like if you're a good putter, it can sort of feed through the rest of your game, and that's how it's felt this year.â€
“Rory is a true leader out here on tour. The fact that he’s actually able to get the things he said out in the public eye, be so clear-minded with it and so eloquent with it, meanwhile go out there and win golf tournaments on top of that ... â€
TIGER WOODS
For all McIlroy did on the golf course, his impact off the course may have been more dramatic. An outspoken critic of LIV Golf and its heavy-handed encroachment into the professional game, McIlroy willingly defended the PGA Tour while working with Tiger Woods, among others, to change its structure.
While he was premature in declaring LIV Golf “dead in the water†after Phil Mickelson’s controversial comments became public in February, McIlroy has been a vocal proponent of what the PGA Tour is and can be. Working with Woods and their managers during the summer, McIlroy helped craft the new tour model that will feature 12 elevated, big-money events in 2023, with more planned for future years.
McIlroy recently called for LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman to step aside in a possible first move toward defusing the ongoing battle.
“What Rory has said and done are what leaders do,†Woods said. “Rory is a true leader out here on tour. The fact that he's actually able to get the things he said out in the public eye, be so clear-minded with it and so eloquent with it, meanwhile go out there and win golf tournaments on top of that, people have no idea how hard that is to do, to be able to separate those two things.â€
Scheffler was voted player of the year by his PGA Tour peers after the wraparound season ended in August. He won four times – the WM Phoenix Open, Arnold Palmer Invitational, Masters and WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play – in six starts early in the year, rising to No. 1 in a stretch that would last for 30 weeks before McIlroy supplanted him. Scheffler also tied for second in the U.S. Open and led the FedEx Cup playoffs into the final event before McIlroy beat him.
Smith, meanwhile, won the Sentry Tournament of Champions, the Players Championship, shot 64 in the final round to win the Open Championship at St. Andrews and captured the Australian PGA Championship. Smith also jumped to LIV Golf, winning its Chicago event.
Top: Rory McIlroy comes up all smiles in 2022, posting three victories and becoming only the second player to win the season points titles on the PGA and DP World tours.
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