Irish pair take the positives ahead of FedEx Cup

It may have come a week too late for his PGA Championship defence hopes but Rory McIlroy is more than confident he has turned a corner in time to rescue what has been a substandard season.

As Graeme McDowell opined following the completion of a season of major disappointments on Sunday night at Oak Hill, timing is not an exact science when it comes to peaking for the biggest tournaments of the year and compared to 2012, his good friend McIlroy was seven days behind schedule in terms of adding to his majors haul.

It was the previous week last year when McIlroy left behind a summer of discontent and scored a top-10 at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational in Akron, a shift in fortunes that paved the way for a record-breaking eight-stroke PGA Championship victory the following Sunday at Kiawah Island. That in turn sent McIlroy into the FedEx Cup play-offs like a man possessed and he won back-to-back big-money events at the DeutscheBank and BMW Championships before taking the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai to finish the year as money leader on both the PGA and European Tours.

A year on and the good form appears to have arrived at the PGA Championship, with McIlroy achieving his best finish in the majors this year with a tie for eighth place at Oak Hill, giving him momentum heading into the FedEx Cup.

“Yes, pretty much,” McIlroy agreed. “My game is in great shape and I’m just a little disappointed I didn’t capitalise on how well I had played. “There’s still enough golf ahead of me this year to turn it into very good year. I have four very big weeks coming up to try and finish off the PGA Tour season well. I’ve also got a few events out in Asia.”

McDowell was similarly buoyed by a return to the form that had won him three tournaments this season but deserted him during the majors when he needed it most. The Portrush golfer, who played in the final group on Sunday in both the US Open and British Open in 2012, shot a final-round 66 to take a share of 12th place, his best finish in a major this season.

“Just a disappointing year,” McDowell said, referring to the majors. “To take the four majors holistically, for me, it’s a bad performance. It’s difficult to prime yourself to come and perform at these, they’re such a tough test. I won the week after the Masters and two weeks after the US Open. Sometimes you’re over-prepared and maybe put a little too much expectation on yourself and when you do let the pressure valve release you play great the week after or two weeks after. It’s hard.”

For a player who won the US Open in 2010, McDowell was surprisingly critical of his overall majors career. “I’d give myself a C+. A lot of room for improvement, getting better all the time. I certainly have a huge amount of belief that I can win one more of these at least, maybe more, and just continuing learning really. It’s just a process and yeah, I’ll look back at the end of the year as a disappointing major championship year but I’ll learn from the mistakes I’ve made and I won’t make those mistakes again.”