CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA | No matter how familiar Rory McIlroy’s dominance at Quail Hollow Club and the Wells Fargo Championship may be, it doesn’t diminish the brilliance of his latest accomplishment.
It was like adding a fourth diamond to a necklace.
Trailing Xander Schauffele by two strokes on the eighth tee Sunday, McIlroy played the next eight holes in 8-under par while Schauffele stumbled, allowing McIlroy to win by five shots while closing with a 6-under-par 65 that couldn’t be tarnished by a closing double bogey.
At a place where he has shot 61 and 62 in previous Wells Fargo victories, McIlroy did it again, turning what began as a back-and-forth battle between two of the top four players in the Official World Golf Ranking into a personal Mother’s Day parade over the finishing holes.
"Going to a venue next week where I've won, it feels like the stars are lining up a little bit."
Rory McIlroy
“He played unbelievable. Looked up at the board and I'm like, dang, he’s 6 under through six on the back nine; it’s something else,” said Schauffele, who was in the final pairing for the fourth time this year but remains winless since the summer of 2022.
As sweet as his 26th career PGA Tour victory (he tied Henry Picard at 22nd place on the all-time list) may be, McIlroy understood that what’s next – the PGA Championship at Valhalla where he won the last of his four major titles – is straight ahead.
It comes with this added bit of juice:
McIlroy and world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler will arrive in Louisville, Kentucky, having won their two most recent starts, while defending champion Brooks Koepka won his most recent outing on the LIV Golf tour.
One more tidbit: When McIlroy won at Valhalla in 2014, he had won his two previous starts as he has now (he won the Zurich Classic of New Orleans with Shane Lowry two weeks ago).
“Going to a venue next week where I've won, it feels like the stars are lining up a little bit. But I've got a lot of golf to play and a lot of great players to try to beat next week. Going into the next major of the year feeling really good about myself,” said McIlroy, who finished at 17-under-par 267.
For a guy who began the week acknowledging that his interest in rejoining the PGA Tour Policy Board had been denied, it ended in a familiar pose.
“Getting inside the ropes for that four or five hours a day, it’s a nice escape from everything else going on in the world of golf,” McIlroy said. “I’ve always been able to compartmentalize pretty well. I seem, for whatever reason, to play good golf when I have a lot of stuff going on.”
McIlroy has tried to define what it is about Quail Hollow that fits him, and much of it is what he sees when he stands on the tees. It plays to his unmatched driving ability, and it was little surprise that he gained 6.1 strokes on the field off the tee.
Having battled inconsistent iron play earlier this season, McIlroy ranked fourth best in approach to the greens, and he gained 4.2 strokes on the greens.
That’s a lot of numbers to reach an obvious conclusion: His game can take McIlroy places where few others can reach.
“He’s Rory McIlroy, you know?” Schauffele said.
Ron Green Jr.
