KOHLER, WISCONSIN (REUTERS) - The United States, led by a new generation, reclaimed the Ryder Cup on Sunday (Sept 26), reaching the 14-1/2 points required to beat holders Europe and heralding what could be an era of domination by the Americans at the biennial competition. Having romped to a commanding 11-5 advantage after the foursome and fourball sessions, the Americans entered the singles needing just 3-1/2 points to get to the target needed to hoist the little gold trophy. Collin Morikawa ended European hopes when he birdied the 17th to go 1Up in his match with Viktor Hovland, guaranteeing the US a deciding half-point. The 24-year-old Ryder Cup rookie would make it official a few minutes later with a par on 18 to end the match in a tie, sending a thundering chant of "USA, USA" rumbling across Whistling Straits. "To clinch this and bring it back on home soil feels so good," said Morikawa, one of six rookies on the 12-man US team. "The guys pulled through; we didn't let up." It was just the second time in six competitions and third in 10 that the US had claimed golf's most coveted team title. Never before in 42 previous Ryder Cups had a team come back from more than a four-point deficit on the final day and Padraig Harrington's men, while defiant, never threatened to make history. Whistling Straits provided a stunning backdrop and perfect party spot for 40,000 mostly flag-waving American fans who flooded into the links-style Pete Dye jewel on the Lake Michigan shoreline on Sunday, ready to celebrate. Morikawa sent the party into overdrive but it would be some time before all his team mates could join in with seven matches still out on the course to be completed and the only thing left to be decided the margin of victory. Given their commanding lead, there were worries about a lack of intensity by the US players but a raucous crowd on the first tee assured their batteries were fully charged heading out. Needing something magical, Harrington turned to a player who had so far provided little of it at Whistling Straits, tasking a winless Rory McIlroy with sparking a European fightback. McIlroy, who laboured so badly in the foursome and fourballs that Harrington stood down the Northern Irishman for the first time in his Ryder Cup career, was first out against Olympic champion Xander Schauffele and found a spark, going 2up after four holes and never trailing in a 3&2 win. But behind McIlroy an American red wave was forming on the scoreboard as Jon Rahm, Sergio Garcia and Shane Lowry, who had accounted for most of the European points in the foursome and fourballs, failed to fire. Patrick Cantlay defeated Lowry 4&2 and Scottie Scheffler slayed Europe's best Rahm 4&3. More on this topic Related Story Golf: Delayed Ryder Cup returns to raucous reception Related Story Golf: Europe drop Rory McIlroy for Saturday's foursomes line-up in Ryder Cup Scheffler, a captain's pick still without a PGA Tour win, was handed the daunting task of taking on the world number one and did not wilt from the challenge, going 4up on the Spaniard after four holes and never letting him back into the match. Big-hitting Bryson DeChambeau, the crowd favourite with his monster drives, pounded Garcia into submission 3&2 to leave the US a half-point from mission accomplished. Who would get that crucial point was a toss-up between several matches but Morikawa got the honour when he nearly aced the 17th, leaving a short tap-in that secured nothing short of a draw.
LA JOLLA, UNITED STATES (AFP) - Rory McIlroy is trying to recapture his free-swinging style from a decade ago that made him a major champion and snap a seven-year major win drought at the US Open. The 32-year-old from Northern Ireland won his first major at the 2011 US Open at Congressional and seeks that form again when he tees off Thursday afternoon at Torrey Pines. "I'm feeling good about where my game is," McIlroy said. "It's about going out there and playing as free as I can and having that mentality I had as a 22-year-old and just trying to get into that mindset." World number 11 McIlroy ended an 18-month win drought last month at Quail Hollow but hasn't won a major since the 2014 PGA Championship. "I won a tournament four or five weeks ago, so it's there," McIlroy said. "The technical and mechanical parts of it are all there. It's just a matter of going out in a US Open setting and just trusting what I've been doing in practice." McIlroy had a coaching session last week, his mind more a concern than anything physical. "That gets more into the mental side of things and just being really clear and committed... being as free on the course as I am on the range," he said. "That's the big challenge, but in terms of where everything's heading, it's definitely in the right direction." The four-time major winner said he played better finishing 18th at Memorial than winning a month earlier, improving each week. But he has struggled to break 70 in first rounds at majors. "Probably just putting a little too much pressure on myself, playing too carefully, being a little tentative," McIlroy said. The solution, McIlroy says, is being "indifferent" which he defined as "not putting myself under pressure that I have to care." He has found it easy to play relaxed after a poor start but says, "It's just a matter of freewheeling from the Thursday and not the Friday." McIlroy missed the cut at this year's Masters while in a swing transition and shared 49th in last month's PGA, struggling in brisk winds. "Since then, I've changed my driver setup a little bit, and I feel a lot more comfortable," McIlroy said. McIlroy plays the first two rounds alongside England's Justin Rose and US world number one Dustin Johnson. 'Boring' at the top McIlroy met US Women's Open winner Yuka Saso on Tuesday and told the Filipino teen, who modeled her swing on his, to write down her thoughts after practices and prepare for consistency and success to be boring. "It was cool to meet her," McIlroy said. "I just said what I've always tried to do is write everything down. Just whatever feelings you have after a practice session. "All I was trying to tell her is it's boring to be at the top of the game for a very long time. You just have to keep doing the same things. Whatever works." McIlroy, chairman of the PGA Tour Players Advisory Committee, said he favors the US Open adopting a core of host courses. "When you think of a US Open, you think of the iconic venues it has been played on," McIlroy said, citing Pebble Beach and Shinnecock. "There are courses that are just synonymous with US Opens. I don't really think we need to go too far outside of those." More on this topic Related Story Golf: DeChambeau hoping for US Open showdown with Koepka Related Story Golf: No Koepka-DeChambeau pairing in early rounds of US Open He also favours the tour banning greens books, forcing players to know the putting surfaces better. "For the greater good of the game, I'd like to see them be outlawed and for them not to be used anymore," McIlroy said. "It's just taking away a skill that takes time and practice to be mastered. I think reading greens is a real skill that some people are better at than others, and it just nullifies that advantage. "I think it has made everyone lazier. People don't put in the time to prepare the way they used to." More on this topic Related Story Golf: Spieth battles sore heel at US Open after major improvement Related Story Golf: Rahm confident for US Open despite Covid-19 quarantine
KIAWAH ISLAND (REUTERS) - Rory McIlroy dug himself into a deep hole in another major before barely getting started, shooting three-over-par 75 in the opening round at the PGA Championship on Thursday (May 20). The Northern Irishman will have to defy history to lift the Wanamaker Trophy on Sunday. Not since John Mahaffey in 1978 has a player recovered from such a poor opening round to capture the title. It all went wrong from the very start for McIlroy when he blocked his opening tee shot at the par-four 10th so far right into a hazard that he was not even quite sure where to take his penalty drop on a typically windswept morning at Kiawah Island. A flock of eight herons flew overhead in perfect aerodynamic formation as McIlroy pondered his third shot from a waste bunker. He eventually holed a clutch five-foot putt for bogey, getting up-and-down from a bunker for what in the end was an excellent nerve-settling bogey. But even though he avoided disaster there, it was not to be the best of days for the man who looked likely to be the greatest player of his generation when he won the 2012 PGA Championship by eight strokes on this course. With father Gerry in the large, mainly maskless gallery that arrived early in brilliant morning sunshine, McIlroy got to the turn in even par thanks to an excellent short game that would have done the late Seve Ballesteros proud. But he could not continue the chipping and putting magic and this was the third straight major that McIlroy has struggled early. In back-to-back Masters he shot opening rounds of 75 and 76. McIlroy, 32, did not speak with the media on Thursday, no doubt despondent to be six shots from the early lead and in need of a strong round on Friday to avoid going home early for the second major in a row. More on this topic Related Story Golf: McIlroy seeks PGA Championship encore at Kiawah Related Story Golf: Rory McIlroy wins at Wells Fargo to end 18-month title drought McIlroy piled up four majors in quick succession from 2011 through 2014 but is winless since in any of the four championships that comprise the modern Grand Slam. He has proved a good frontrunner in majors, shooting 67 or better on each of the four occasions he has lifted the trophy, but has yet to prove he can stage a comeback from a big deficit.
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Rory McIlroy dismissed revived talk of a golf Super League as a "money grab" on Wednesday (May 5) as the PGA Tour reportedly warned players they could face a life ban if they signed up to the lucrative breakaway tour. The 32-year-old Northern Ireland star compared the notion to the failed European Super League football scheme and said that winning majors was more of a driving force to top golfers than chasing money in a rebel circuit. "Go back to what happened last week in Europe with the European Super League in football," McIlroy said. "People can see it for what it is, which is a money grab, which is fine if that's what you're playing golf for is to make as much money as possible. Totally fine, then go and do that if that's what makes you happy. "But I think the top players in the game, I'm just speaking my own personal beliefs, like I'm playing this game to try to cement my place in history and my legacy and to win major championships and to win the biggest tournaments in the world. "I'm very much against it. I don't see what anyone would be for it." US PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan reportedly told players on Tuesday at this week's tournament in Charlotte, North Carolina, that any player joining a rival series could face an immediate lifetime PGA ban. European Tour chief executive Keith Pelley says his circuit is united with the US PGA Tour in opposing any alternative golf league "in the strongest possible terms" and that would include ineligibility for the Ryder Cup. McIlroy said he would have no problem with extreme punishment for defectors from the established golf tours. "You have to protect your product, right? You have to protect what you have," McIlroy said. "It's a competitive threat. And Jay took us through it last night. It's in the bylaws that were written by the members. "If I were in charge of the PGA Tour, I would do the same thing." According to multiple reports, Super League Golf, the latest version of the former Premier Golf League, has plans for five events with 16 players divided into four four-man teams playing for team and individual titles with US$20-30 million just for taking part. Among the league's reported targets are top-ranked Dustin Johnson, world number two Justin Thomas, reigning Olympic champion Justin Rose of England, four-time major winner Brooks Koepka, three-time major winner Jordan Spieth and last month's Masters winner, Japan's Hideki Matsuyama. "Not much interest' "I don't have much interest," Thomas said. "I love it out here on the PGA Tour and we're very fortunate to get to go to some unbelievable places and play for a lot of money. I'm very content and very happy with everything how it's going here. "I personally am about being number one in the world and winning as many majors as I can and winning as many tournaments as I can and doing historical things on the PGA Tour. "If I was to go do that, then all those things go down the drain and I can't do that." More on this topic Related Story Golf: Players warned against signing up for breakaway tour, say reports Related Story Golf: Idea of mega-bucks Premier Golf League gaining traction again, says media report Webb Simpson, the 2012 US Open winner, said the rebel league seemed "far-fetched" from the start. "It's hard for me to believe that it's really going to happen and the guys will really jump ship," Simpson said. "There's too many unknowns and things they would have to figure out for this thing to actually work. "Most of these guys, they're financially set. They want to break records. They want to win. I don't think throwing X amount of money at guys is as appealing now as it maybe once was. "If I'm a guy who's on my way to make history like Dustin or a few other top guys, I want to go after records, not a dollar." McIlroy, ranked 15th, said the PGA and European tours are golf's best possible system. "I don't think there's a better structure in place and I don't think there will be," McIlroy said. 'Very prudent move' McIlroy also pointed to a new US PGA bonus programme providing more money to the most popular players as a method of fighting Super League guaranteed money. "Everyone knows it was a little bit designed to try to appease some of the people that had their heads turned by different leagues," McIlroy said. "I think it's a very prudent move on the tour's part." McIlroy doesn't see a breakaway tour catching enough support from players to become real. "I just can't see how it happens," McIlroy said. "And the possibility that people, if they do go in that direction, can't play in the biggest tournaments in the game? "Golf is steeped in history and... if you move further away from that, you're basically losing the essence of what competitive golf is."
AUGUSTA, UNITED STATES (AFP) - Rory McIlroy struck his father with a wayward shot in Thursday's (April 8) opening round of the Masters on the way to his worst start at Augusta National, a four-over par 76. The 31-year-old from Northern Ireland, a four-time major winner, can complete a career Grand Slam with a Masters triumph, but he has been working on his swing and struggling to find consistency. Summing up his issues was his second shot at the par-4 seventh hole, with McIlroy slightly behind a tree to the left and coming off back-to-back bogeys. Trying to bend his approach around a tree, McIlroy instead sliced the ball well right, the errant ball striking his father on the back of a leg as he was walking to the green. "I should ask for an autographed glove," the elder McIlroy joked. Rory McIlroy joked that he might sign something that would come in more useful to heal his dad's sore calf. "He has seen me sign plenty of stuff over the years, so I think that's the least of his worries," the younger McIlroy said. "I think he just needs to go and put some ice on - maybe I'll autograph a bag of frozen peas for him." McIlroy, whose worst prior Masters start was last year's 75, had already seen his father down the right side and was aiming at him with plans for the ball to curl back toward the green, which it didn't do, setting up a third bogey in a row. "I knew it was my dad when I was aiming at him," McIlroy said. "In fairness, I was trying to turn it off. It was a perfect shot. It was dead straight. "But I think he was OK. He didn't limp away. He walked away pretty swiftly so that was all right." McIlroy's problems aren't as easy to walk off. He hasn't won since 2019 in Shanghai and hasn't won a major since the 2014 PGA Championship. "It still didn't feel quite 100 per cent but I was encouraged by some of the stuff I saw out there," McIlroy said of a round that featured six bogeys and two birdies. 'I hung in there' Swing coach Pete Cowen is trying to simplify McIlroy's swing motion, but changes aren't simple. "Any time you're working on things with your swing, it's going to feel very different, but it's not as if I haven't done these things before," McIlroy said. "That's the thing. It's like you get into these bad habits and that feels normal, and then you get it back into position where I've been a million times before and it just feels a little different." Firm and fast conditions had many of the world's top players scrambling. "I hung in there, hit some good shots coming in. I'm quite encouraged by the way I hit it on the way in," McIlroy said. "Could have made a couple more birdies, but it's not as if anyone is going really low. "The par-5s you can birdie but then you have to be happy with giving yourself 25-, 30-footers every time. If you can do that, you've played a really good round of golf."
LOS ANGELES (REUTERS) - Rory McIlroy has been in touch with Tiger Woods and said that the 15-times major champion is doing better and could soon return home from hospital to begin recovery after sustaining serious leg injuries in a car crash last month. World number 11 McIlroy delivered the update on Woods while speaking in a video call with Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon that aired late on Tuesday (March 9). "I've spoken to him a little bit," McIlroy said from Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, where he is the defending champion at this week's Players Championship. "He's doing better. I think all the guys have reached out to him. "Hopefully, if things go well over the next week or so, he might be able to get home and start recovery at home which would be great for him. See his kids, see his family. "But yeah, he's doing better and I just think all of us are wishing him a speedy recovery at this point," added the four-times major champion. Woods was taken to hospital in Los Angeles two weeks ago after losing control of the vehicle he was driving. The golfing great was negotiating a curved, downhill stretch of highway when his vehicle veered across the opposite lanes, collided with a road sign and rolled several times. McIlroy said Woods texted him ahead of the final round of last week's Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill in Orlando where he began the day within striking distance of the top of the leaderboard but struggled to a closing four-over-par 76. "He texted me some words of encouragement before the final round at Bay Hill on Sunday and things didn't quite go to plan and he was the first one to text me and be like 'what's going on here?'" said McIlroy. "So even from the hospital bed he's still giving me some heat." Rory McIlroy Addresses His Controversial Pizza Comments | The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon More on this topic Related Story Golf: Tiger Woods was found unconscious, documents say Related Story Golf: Tiger Woods told cops he didn't remember driving, reports US paper