McIlroy perfectly poised to become $10m man
Victory in the Tour Championship in Atlanta will earn him $1.4m (€1.06m) and even that sum will pale in comparison with the $10m (€7.6m) bonus he will secure if he tops the FedEx Cup series.
The bookmakers make the 23-year-old Hollywood wonder boy, who has accumulated close to $10m (€7.6m) from on-course activities this year, a 4/1 favourite, one point ahead of Tiger Woods.
Mathematically, any one of the elite 30 players in the field, which includes Woods, Phil Mickelson, Nick Watney and Brandt Snedeker, could leave Atlanta with the massive jackpot. But it is certainly McIlroy’s to lose.
Very few get as close to the action or are as privy to what’s happening when golf’s greatest go head to head as the on-course television commentators.
Former Tour player, NBC’s Roger Maltbie walks alongside Rory, Tiger, Luke and the rest week in, week out, studying the various aspects of their game and vividly passing on what he sees and learns to his audience. Maltbie has been hugely impressed with McIlroy’s recent victories in the US PGA and the Deutsche Bank and BMW Championships and can see only one winner in Atlanta.
“The way he’s driving it, I think every golf course on the planet sets up well for Rory,” says Maltbie.
NBC analyst and former US Open champion Johnny Miller fully agrees, stressing the importance of McIlroy’s ability to win even when he’s not at his best.
“He won the last two events with his ‘C’ game on two out of four days and the only guy who ever used to do that was Tiger,” says Miller.
“That’s a big advantage when you can have two off-days and still win tournaments against the best players — that’s a pretty comforting thing.”
But the controversial Miller cannot hand out a compliment without taking some of it back in the next breath. He acknowledges McIlroy is sixth in driving distance on the PGA Tour at 309.8 yards with Woods 34th (297.3) but points out: “If Tiger had the ball and the clubs they use now and he was 19, he would fly McIlroy by 15, 20 yards. Tiger had 132 miles of club head speed when he was 19 or 20. Nobody’s ever been in that league.”
In his first season on Tour in 1996, Woods, then 20, would have ranked No. 1 in driving distance at 302.8 yards if he played in enough events. But Tiger is now 36 and not only is he not as long as he used to be but he’s nothing like as accurate as he was in his heyday. It would appear from his words that Miller (who will head the NBC commentary team at East Lake) would prefer to see Woods rather than McIlroy claim the massive loot at stake and Tiger as always will fight all the way to the last putt.
If it isn’t Woods who spoils the McIlroy party, it could well be Phil Mickelson although Johnny Miller remains unconvinced in spite of “Lefty’s” sustained improvement in his most recent tournaments.
“Phil still doesn’t really know where the ball is going off the tee,” says Miller. “But he’s fun to watch because you never know where he’s going to hit it and he can get it up and down from anywhere.”
Mickelson should never be ruled out of any golfing equation and he has looked better since switching to a modified claw putting grip at The Barclays. Since doing so, he has shot eight of his past 10 rounds in the 60s. Nevertheless, and not overlooking the capacity of not just Woods and Mickelson but the entire field to upset calculations, Rory McIlroy remains favourite to claim the unbelievable riches on offer. Another member of the NBC team, Brandel Chamblee, puts his prospects in the kind of context we all hope will come to fruition.
“His driver and long-iron combination is the biggest weapon in golf,” he said. “His ability to hit those sky-high irons — it separated Jack, it separated Tiger and it’s separating Rory.”
