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AND SO WE head to Charlotte for the year’s second major, which has crept suddenly upon us as we were all still basking in that flaxen, post-McIlroy-at-the-Masters haze.
Let’s start with a one-time resident of this state, F. Scott Fitzgerald, who probed the decadent heart of Jazz Age-wealth and status in The Beautiful and Damned and flipped moral convention on its head as he did so.
“The victor”, wrote Fitzgerald, “belongs to the spoils.”
This marks the first week in which Fitzgerald’s aphorism no longer applies to Rory McIlroy.
Winning the Masters and completing the career Grand Slam means he is no longer yoked to his ultimate ambitions and is thus freed and, in his own words, “playing with house money.”
Defending champion Xander Schauffele has described this as a scary prospect. Winning the Masters has allowed McIlroy finally speak freely of its weight of pressure, and finally admit in words what his body language had been screaming for years.
So this week we will discover What’s Next. Having completed the career Grand Slam, he says he won’t again be setting another lofty, propulsive target for his career.
“I think everyone saw how hard having a north star is and being able to get over the line”, McIlroy told The 42 on Wednesday. “I feel like I sort of burdened myself with the career Grand Slam stuff, and I want to enjoy this.”
He later said he still has targets, though won’t ever be focusing on them to the point of becoming possessed by them, as he was by his epic longing for the Masters.
He thus decided not to indulge talk of The Rory Slam, and a tilt at winning all four majors in a single calendar year. Nobody has done it before, even if Tiger Woods held all four titles at one time across 2000 and 2001.
It’s an absurd ambition, really, to think he could actually go and do it. Part of the talk is stirred purely by the fact he won the year’s first major, of course, but it’s been given a little extra airtime by the fact of this week’s venue.
McIlroy has described Quail Hollow as one of his favourite places in the world, and little wonder: he has won four times here, setting a couple of course records along the way. He won his first PGA Tour title at Quail Hollow and is its most recent Tour winner too; he won here near the peak of his powers in 2015 and at his greatest professional low in 2021; and he’s given the course two scoring records as the course has given him three of the five-best ball-striking weeks of his career, stats-wise.
The sheer length of the course naturally yields to his remarkable driving distance, and its littered with doglegs that suit his trademark right-to-left draw. There’s also the intangible stuff of targets and dimensions that go into it simply suiting his eye.
There is going to be an added value premium on driving this week by dint of the weather: the course has been soaked by heavy rain all week and so will play longer than it did when it last hosted this championship in August 2017.
The more specialist golf media in America have been united in complaint at the choice of Quail Hollow as a venue this week, moaning that it’s over-exposed as a regular Tour stop and that its premium on driving makes it dreary and one-dimensional.
The PGA Championship has often struggled to carve out a distinct identity among the four majors, however, and so its organisers have recently decided to lean into B-movie drama, eschewing art and originality for sheer, adrenal thrill.
The course follows a three-act structure: open steady through a tricky first six holes, make your scoring from holes seven to 15, and then cling on for dear life during the fiendish closing three holes, which are suitably nicknamed the Green Mile, with water snaking sinisterly around them.
Organisers have assembled the best field they could find – moral or political objections to the LIV Tour be damned – and will invite them to go low. Xander Schauffele and Shane Lowry tied the lowest major rounds in history with a pair of 62s at Valhalla last year, while Schauffele went on to win with a record low score of 21-under.
The tournament is blessed by the fact most of the world’s top players arrive in form. Scottie Scheffler and Bryson DeChambeau both won on their most recent starts, while 2017 champ Justin Thomas finally returned to the winners’ circle at the RBC Heritage a month ago.
Scheffler is not blessed with the driving length of McIlroy or DeChambeau but the quality of his iron play mitigates that disadvantage, while DeChambeau can outdrive even McIlroy. DeChambeau’s sloppy iron play cost him a true title at the Masters last month, but says that part of his game has since improved. If that proves to be the case this week, then we could be looking at a third Rory/Bryson shootout in less than a year. . . at which point the golf sickos’ scepticism of this week’s venue will be quickly forgotten.
Defending champion Schuaffele, meanwhile, is slowly inching back into form following a rib injury, and he has a formidable record around this course: of this week’s field, only McIlroy has a better scoring average at Quail Hollow since 2003.
The field is rich with storylines.
Can Jordan Spieth take inspiration from Rory McIlroy and complete the career Grand Slam? Can Jon Rahm prove his competitive edge has not been hopelessly blunted by his mega-lucrative move to LIV? And whither Brooks Koepka?
There are five Irish golfers in the field this week, with Shane Lowry arriving in a curious state of mind. His consistency has been validated by the fact he has now broken into the world’s top 10, but he is still not minting his performances. Without a solo win since Wentworth in 2022, Lowry came close to breaking his duck at the Truist Championship on Sunday before scuppering himself with two bogeys in the final three holes.
He spoke yesterday of his determination to keep on knocking at the door, but Quail Hollow is a poor fit for his game, given he lacks relative length off the tee.
“I wish we were at a venue that suits my game a little bit better, but I do feel like if I play my best golf, I can contend”, Lowry told the Irish media yesterday.
The course may be a better fit for Tom McKibbin, who bagged a special invite despite defecting to LIV and rendering himself unable to qualify. A Holywood protege of McIlroy’s, the stats show McKibbin has the kind of driving distance that will suit Quail Hollow.
Padraig Harrington is here too, with a lifetime exemption as a past champion, turning up here rather than playing a curiously-timed major championship on the seniors’ tour. Sports psychologist Bob Rotella has been on site this week and walked nine holes with Harrington, Lowry, and McIlroy on Tuesday: Harrington says he’s here to sharpen his own mental game and stand him in better stead for a two-month stretch of golf on the seniors tour that culminates with the Open in Portrush.
Also competing is Seamus Power, who is currently lingering a little too lowly of the PGA Tour. Currently ranked 99th, Power needs to finish among the top 100 to guarantee his Tour card for next year. Harrington told us he fears this will be a burden for Power this week, but the man himself says it’s far from his mind. Instead he is embracing a course with which he is familiar, having spent a decade living in Charlotte.
Nobody, however, is as familiar with Quail Hollow as Rory McIlroy, and this is the kind of familiarity that breeds content.
McIlroy is primed to win once again. DeChambeau and Scheffler are the best-placed to disturb his serene mood.
Tips
Written by Gavin Cooney and originally published on The 42 whose award-winning team produces original content that you won’t find anywhere else: on GAA, League of Ireland, women’s sport and boxing, as well as our game-changing rugby coverage, all with an Irish eye. Subscribe here.
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