Rory McIlroy cashes in, the Tour Championship format shines in Year 1, Juli Inkster goes with experience, Viktor Hovland earns his PGA Tour card, Brooks Koepka strips down and more in this week's edition of the Monday Scramble:
Though the new FedExCup finale is far from perfect – more on that later – the Tour Championship went about as well as the PGA Tour could have hoped.
In the final pairing Sunday afternoon were the two best players all season long.
There was compelling back-nine drama, with three-shot swings and costly mistakes and clutch putts.
And Rory McIlroy won both the 72-hole competition (worth Official World Golf Ranking points) and the net division, earning him the richest prize in golf history.
The golf was quality. It was simple to follow. And there was a deserving winner of the season-long race.
What more could you ask for in Year 1?
1. Now THAT’S the Rory McIlroy we’ve been waiting to see in a big-time spot.
Putting on a clinic off the tee (more than five shots gained on the field!). Looking sharp with his wedges. And showing off the most improved part of his game, with a rock-solid putting stroke.
McIlroy was so impressive throughout the entire bag that he built a four-shot lead on the back nine and was able to afford a few dropped shots on East Lake’s toughest holes.
For a guy who has been criticized for folding under pressure – including last year in the final group with Tiger Woods, and again last month in another head-to-head duel with world No. 1 Brooks Koepka in Memphis – this was a macho response from McIlroy.
2. There were a couple of moments that helped push McIlroy toward the $15 million jackpot.
The first came on the par-4 eighth, when he made a rare miscue with a short iron, pulling his shot left of the green. The ball appeared headed for the pond – and a likely double bogey – before it got caught up in a drain and came to rest short of the penalty area. He pitched on and saved par.
Those are the breaks that win championships.
The other moment that won him the title? It came on 16 green, when McIlroy was coming off back-to-back bogeys and in danger of losing another shot, bringing Xander Schauffele within one. After a mediocre pitch left him 7 feet for par, McIlroy gutted the left-to-right slider to maintain his two-shot cushion. He poured it on from there, with consecutive birdies to close. He eventually won by four.
3. Since it was a big topic of discussion heading into the week, here's how the leaderboard would have looked in previous years at the Tour Championship – and how OWGR points were allocated based on 72-hole finish:
1. Rory McIlroy (-13)
2. Xander Schauffele (-10)
3. Paul Casey (-7)
4. Brooks Koepka (-6)
T-5. Chez Reavie (-5), Adam Scott (-5)
T-7. Tony Finau (-4), Bryson DeChambeau (-4)
T-9. Kevin Kisner (-3), Jason Kokrak (-3)
T-11. Justin Thomas (-2), Hideki Matsuyama (-2)
T-13. Jon Rahm (E), Tommy Fleetwood (E)
T-15. Patrick Reed (+1), Gary Woodland (+1), Louis Oosthuizen (+1), Sungjae Im (+1)
19. Rickie Fowler (+2)
T-20. Webb Simpson (+3), Matt Kuchar (+3), Marc Leishman (+3)
T-23. Corey Conners (+4), Brandt Snedeker (+4), Charles Howell III (+4)
T-26. Abraham Ancer (+5), Justin Rose (+5)
28. Patrick Cantlay (+9)
29. Lucas Glover (+10)
30. Dustin Johnson (+13)
4. There are two ways to view McIlroy’s 2018-19 season.
You can view it as a disappointment, because he ran his major-less drought to five-plus years. That included a shocking no-show in the first round of the Portrush Open, in arguably the most important major of his prime, when his frailties were exposed for the entire world.
And then there are the cold, hard numbers.
McIlroy had three wins in 19 starts, including a dominant performance at The Players (against the strongest field in golf) and again in the season-ending Tour Championship (against the top 30 players of the Tour season). In between was a tour de force in Canada.
It was his most consistent season to date, with a Tour-leading 14 top-10s. It was also – at least statistically – his most impressive.
Strokes gained: total measures a player’s performance against the field. These are the top four seasons in the ShotLink era (since 2004):
- Tiger Woods, 2006: 3.44
- Tiger Woods, 2009: 3.19
- Tiger Woods, 2007: 3.09
- Rory McIlroy, 2019: 2.55
In other words: The only player this century with a better season-long performance against the field was Tiger Woods.
“The Holy Grail is three (strokes),” McIlroy said. “I’m not going to stop until I get to three because Tiger has done that multiple seasons, and when you get to three strokes gained, you’re just in another league. So that’s what I strive towards. I’m getting closer.”
5. McIlroy was part of the policy board meetings that settled on this staggered start for the season finale, and he has 15 million reasons to approve of the format now, too.
This year, yes, it worked out well.
But what if the week had turned out differently?
What if Justin Thomas, who began the week at 10 under, started with consecutive rounds of 65 to blow away the field?
What if Schauffele had clipped McIlroy in low total strokes for the week, but didn’t take home the $15 million?
What if next year Brooks Koepka wins the Grand Slam AND the first two playoff events, and yet he doesn’t win the Tour’s season-long prize?
The week-after discussion would be decidedly different.
It might seem insignificant, but the Tour would be wise to rebrand the season finale – to call it the FedExCup Finale, shifting the focus away from the fact that it’s a 72-hole tournament and more that it’s a four-day shootout for a lot of money. Which reminds us .
6. It was fitting that the player with the highest net worth won the richest prize in golf.
But it touches on a larger point: Do fans really care if millionaires bank even more money?
And will there be the same interest next year when the $15 million payday isn't a new idea?
That’s what McIlroy wondered before the tournament started. “Players might care about it,” McIlroy said, “and we want to be rewarded and paid for what we do. But competitively, it’s not about that. It’s about trying to win golf tournaments.”
Consider the top 5 on the leaderboard heading into the final round.
Four of the five players had at least $30 million in on-course career earnings alone on the PGA Tour, and obviously will take home even more in the next decade or so.
None of these guys are hurting for cash. Not at this level.