Newsmaker of the Year No. 1: Rory McIlroy
Early into his opening turn at the 2011 PGA Championship McIlroy strained a tendon in his right wrist when he played a shot off an Atlanta Athletic Club tree root.
He began his ’12 PGA Tour campaign with a runner-up showing at the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship and held off a charging Tiger Woods on Sunday at The Honda Classic to reclaim the top spot in the world golf ranking.
Around the globe McIlroy would post a “fab five” start to the season, finishing runner-up (Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship), fifth (Dubai Desert Classic), runner-up (Match Play), first (Honda) and third (WGC-Cadillac Championship).
Following a playoff loss to Rickie Fowler at the Quail Hollow Championship McIlroy missed three consecutive cuts around the world and posted just two top-10 finishes in a run of seven events.
But it was another member of McIlroy’s inner circle that helped wrest the Ulsterman out of his swoon and the tonic had little to do with the mechanics of his swing.
Of all the accolades McIlroy collected at the PGA Championship it was his eight-stroke margin of victory that set a new historical footnote, supplanting Nicklaus in the record books, and rocked the status quo.
He did what all great players can do, he played the best possible golf as if it had the least possible consequence,” said David Feherty, the on-course reporter following McIlroy on Sunday at Kiawah Island.
“It’s the greatest round of golf I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen Tiger Woods play a lot of golf, but that was something special.” McIlroy won back-to-back FedEx Cup playoff events (Deutsche Bank Championship and BMW Championship) with apologies to Brandt Snedeker, McIlroy’s inability to secure the season-long title seemed more like a pencil whipping than an outright loss and staved off a potentially embarrassing faux pas at September’s Ryder Cup thanks to the efforts of Lombard (Ill.) deputy police chief Patrick Rollins, who raced the European hero to Medinah just in time to help secure Europe’s one-point victory.
“I have probably changed my mindset a little bit over the past 12 or 18 months, and it’s definitely helped and obviously helped me to win more tournaments,” said McIlroy, who added money titles on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean for good measure.