Extended Highlights
Rory McIlroy’s Round 4 highlights from TOUR Championship
ATLANTA – Rory McIlroy hit his opening tee shot of the TOUR Championship over the fence that borders East Lake Golf Club and onto Allendale Drive SE, and if this didn’t amount to totaling the car on the way out of the garage, it at least redefined the term Starting Strokes. His triple-bogey on the first hole, and a bogey on the second, dropped him 10 shots behind FedExCup No. 1 Scottie Scheffler. At least there were 70 holes remaining.
That McIlroy would shoot 67 that day seemed unlikely. That he would chase down Scheffler to win the FedExCup? Impossible. And yet here we are, McIlroy’s final-round 66 overcoming a six-shot deficit to edge a faltering Scheffler (73) and surging Sungjae Im (66) by a shot.
“Incredible day, incredible week,” said McIlroy, who also birdied the last two holes of his weather-delayed third round Sunday. “… To claw my way back and end up winning the tournament, incredible. Just really proud of my resilience and how I sort of handled that start and just sort of stuck my head down and kept going all week and took advantage of the opportunity that I was given today.”
McIlroy admitted he didn’t give himself much of a chance to chase down Scheffler, who won four times in six starts in the spring and took a six-shot lead into the final round. Both players bogeyed the first hole, but McIlroy rallied for a front-nine 32, Scheffler scuffled to a 37.
At that point it was anyone’s tournament, and Im was making birdies to get in the mix, as well.
It was McIlroy’s record third FedExCup title. It also came at the end of a season full of solid results but not as many trophies as he would have liked, especially in the majors, where he had four top-10s but no wins.
“I’ve said all along this year, this season felt very, very similar to 2019,” McIlroy said, comparing it to his second FedExCup-winning campaign. “I played great golf. I had some good wins but didn’t pick off a major, but I felt like – Harry (Diamond, McIlroy’s caddie) said it to me on the 18th green today. He goes, ‘All the good golf you played this year, you deserve this.’”
Maybe so, but who deserves what in this game is still open for debate.
That putter that misbehaved as McIlroy slid into solo third place at the Open Championship last month? It woke up. He made nearly 116 feet of putts Sunday, none bigger than his 32-foot birdie bomb on 15 – McIlroy…
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