If Rory McIlroy hadn’t won the Masters last month then the hype around him ahead of this week’s PGA Championship would have gone beyond fever pitch as Quail Hollow is the perfect fit for his powerful style of play.
Although McIlroy has added a lot of finesse to his game this year, a saturated golf course in Charlotte is right in his wheelhouse because of his ability to send drivers and irons into a different stratosphere.
Yet speculation has fizzled out on McIlroy. There’s the odd murmur of a calendar slam, but questions remain over which version of McIlroy we will see this week after he climbed his Everest a month ago.
Jordan Spieth, who is chasing the career grand slam this week, described Quail Hollow as “Rory McIlroy Country Club” as a nod to the four Wells Fargo Championships the Holywood man has won around here.
Which McIlroy shows up this week is anybody’s guess. His last two performances after completing the career grand slam have been admittedly scrappy which is understandable. To have lifted such a burden off his shoulders will have relaxed him a bit more but in doing so may have caused him to lose an edge or sharpness to his game.
When McIlroy arrives at Quail Hollow he will experience a feeling he hasn’t felt for eleven years. That pressure, that speculation, the questions, the near misses, the edge, that’s all gone.
As he said in his Masters winner press conference: ‘what are we all going to talk about?’
The edge has certainly been taken off of him after Augusta National but will that relax him or will it make him too relaxed? Once you’ve reached the top of the mountain it’s hard to stomach the fight for another climb.
Hopefully the McIlroy that shows up is the free wheeling version we saw win his first four majors in four years. The one with no pressure on his shoulders.
Pádraig Harrington has always believed that major championships are won in bunches. McIlroy has done it once before and if this is like the second phase of his career or in many ways that he is starting his career again then the 36-year-old can go on another major winning spree.
Talk of the calendar slam is not out of place given the three remaining major venues this year.
Quail Hollow is of course tailor made for him. A drenched golf course will be music to the ears of McIlroy fans. The higher and further he can hit it the better.
Oakmont is another tee to green paradise while Royal Portrush offers McIlroy a chance of redemption in front of his own people in July.
Harrington, a veteran of 775 events, is in the field at the PGA Championship on his past champion exemption and at 53 he still has no intention of being a ceremonial golfer who reflects on past glories and gives a beaming smile and wave to the galleries.
It’s no surprise that Bob Rotella has been called on this week to sharpen his mind ahead of a busy stretch of golf.
One would expect that Rotella, who has his fingerprints on a lot of Irish major wins, will be in McIlroy’s ear at some stage this week just to tune him back in to the job at hand.
McIlroy shouldn’t lose his edge, there is still so much to play for. The calendar slam, can he get into double digits in majors wins? Can he eclipse Nick Faldo’s six major wins and become the greatest European golfer?
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