Rory rides to PGA’s rescue
A one-lane road for miles to get onto an island.
Traffic jams that burned gas and broiled emotions. Ferocious thunderstorms.
Lightning bolts that sent you scurrying for cover — only cover was at a premium. Bus rides of more than two hours. Concession prices that required a second mortgage. A tough-walking golf course that for many holes couldn’t handle people on one of the sides. Contrived in design, it was a seaside course unfair in many ways, quirky in others, and seemingly chosen as a Major venue to help push expensive real estate deals. Oh, and the highest field average in tournament history, a mind-boggling 78.1 that made you think you were watching a Saturday four-ball at your club.
Talk about a negative tidal wave. It’s hard to believe the resort wasn’t washed into the Atlantic Ocean there was so much bad karma going on.
Yet against all those odds, it was asked of someone, anyone, to pull this championship out of the embers and into... well, maybe not the history books, but at least into a favourable light. Let’s face it, we judge our Majors by the quality of the winner and when the best of the best take charge, we tend to overlook the dents, wrinkles and bruises the event may have incurred along the way.
The insufferable heat of Tulsa in 2007? Who cared, Tiger Woods was utterly brilliant in that PGA.
Forced to a Monday finish in 1983, the Masters lost not an ounce of glitter because Seve Ballesteros won.
All those electrical storms that plagued the 1977 British Open? Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus staged the greatest head-to-head duel in golf history, so who cares? And on whose shoulders did the challenge of saving the 2012 PGA Championship fall? The young man from Holywood, Rory McIlroy.
Not a bad choice, to tell the truth, because while he’s small in stature, McIlroy is enormous in appeal. In contrast to Woods, whose star appeal is massive but his personality hollow, McIlroy supplements his superior skills with a brilliant smile and engaging presence.
When on Friday, McIlroy’s second-round 75 sent him backward on the leaderboard, it was remarked to his father, Gerry, that his son looked happy. “He’s always happy,” Gerry said.
At Kiawah Island, he wasn’t the only one; anyone who claimed any piece of tournament responsibility was positively agog over what McIlroy had managed to do since Friday’s horrific wind knocked the lad silly. A third-round 67 that began Saturday and ended yesterday morning was followed by a mere 33 strokes on his outward nine in the fourth round and into the lead sat the kid from County Down.
That he was being chased by a torrid Ian Poulter (31 going out) and a cast of contenders named Woods, Justin Rose, Keegan Bradley, Adam Scott and Pádraig Harrington was enough to make those PGA of America officials feel quite comfortable in their blue blazers, even in insufferable 90-degree heat and humidity.
Now it’s always been confounding to understand why golf officials feel the need to wear blazers in raging heat when they are on so many other occasions dressed in golf attire when around the game, but so be it.
There they were, smiling those brilliant smiles as if they didn’t have a care in the world. Fact is, for most of the week, they had endless concerns, so many problems beyond their control threatening to soil a championship that has their signature on it.
If they felt helpless for several days, there was good news headed their way. McIlroy would be more than helpful.
Even as McIlroy built a four-stroke lead and carried it to the 12th tee, it seemed to matter not at all if he added to the list of collapses that has strangely highlighted this 2012 pro golf scene.
It was almost as if the young man had done the impossible; he had saved the 94th PGA Championship from infamy.
It will be memorable, thanks to his irrepressible star and the marquee names he led on a Major chase that made everyone forget about the traffic crawls.
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