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10

Sep
Mon

Is McIlroy in the early stages of a Tiger-like run? Let us count the similarities

By Sam WeinmanThere's always some idiot claiming that Rory McIlroy is poised to dominate golf the way Tiger Woods did a dozen years ago.Allow me to be that idiot.When Woods won his second major at the 1999 PGA, it was the start of a historic run. Should we expect the same from McIlroy? Photos by Getty ImagesOK, to be fair, no one can reasonably expect any golfer to rattle off four-straight majors as Woods did between the 2000 U.S. Open and the 2001 Masters. But with McIlroy's third win in four starts on Sunday, it's worth noting the remarkable similarities between the run the Northern Irishman is currently on, and the one Woods began in late summer 1999. Related: Golf's Biggest PhenomsFor instance:   -- Both players followed up dominant, landscape-changing maiden major championship victories (Woods in the 1997 Masters, McIlroy in the 2001 U.S. Open) with what might be described as "a readjustment phase." For Woods, that meant a 1998 season in which he won only once on tour. For McIlroy, it was a lackluster period earlier this season in which he missed four of five cuts.   -- Both players emerged from those trying periods with a convincing win in the season's final major, Woods by holding off Sergio Garcia in a memorable Sunday duel in the 1999 PGA at Medinah; McIlroy with his eight-shot romp at Kiawah. -- Both players, newly emboldened by major win No. 2, used it as a springboard into the rest of the season. Two weeks after his win at Medinah, Woods won the tournament now known as the Bridgestone Invitational, then finished '99 with wins at Disney, the Tour Championship, and the American Express Championship at Valderrama (he then opened the 2000 season with two more wins, extending his win streak to six). As Bill Fields wrote in Golf World after Medinah: "Woods simultaneously has refined his game and grown more comfortable with the glare he works under since his 12-stroke victory at Augusta National."Related: The Shots That Defined The 2012 PGA   McIlroy, meanwhile, has followed up his own PGA win with back-to-wins in the Deutsche Bank and the BMW to virtually lock up Player of the Year honors. The scariest part, though, is McIlroy's done it in a way that suggest he's building toward something bigger. "The more you put yourself in this position, and the more you win and the more you pick up trophies, it becomes normal," McIlroy said. "And it feels like this is what you're supposed to do."  -- Both players were 23.The similarities only go so far, of course. Woods' Tiger Slam, what is widely considered the greatest golf ever played, came on the heels of a dramatic swing overhaul. McIlroy has undergone no such reinventionAlso, McIlroy's two major championship wins have both come on rain-softened big ballparks, where his power and towering ball flight have given him a decided advantage. He has yet to show an ability to win on a diverse set of layouts like Woods did when he won at Pebble Beach, St. Andrews, and Valhalla in 2000. In other words, with Merion, among other courses, looming on the 2013 major schedule, McIlroy still has plenty to prove.  Follow @SamWeinman !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs");

10

Sep
Mon

Video: McIlroy tops a star-studded leader board at the BMW

By Alex Myers The weekend leader board at the BMW Championship was a who's who of golf. Unfortunately for the game's other big stars, though, right now, golf belongs to one name. Rory McIlroy won for a second-straight week and for the third time in his past four tournaments. The 23-year-old solidified his lead in both the Official World Golf Ranking and FedEx Cup standings with a final-round 67 at Crooked Stick to best a loaded leader board. Here are the highlights from Sunday, which included charges by Phil Mickelson, Lee Westwood, Tiger Woods and Dustin Johnson: McIlroy will enter the Tour Championship, the FedEx Cup finale, in first place, but with a points reset, he is just 250 points ahead of Tiger Woods, despite having beaten the 14-time major champion in all three playoff events thus far. The reasoning for the reset is to increase the drama at East Lake next week. Anyone in the top 5 (McIlroy, Woods, Nick Watney, Phil Mickelson and Brandt Snedeker) wins the FedEx Cup trophy and the $10-million bonus with a victory at East Lake. Related: Tiger's "bromances" through the years Of course, we've seen that the winner of sports' biggest payday doesn't have to come from one of the top challengers. Last year, Bill Haas entered the final event ranked No. 25, but his dramatic playoff win (Think: Up-and-down from a water hazard), coupled with a perfect storm of contenders faltering made him the most likely winner of the FedEx Cup in the competition's five-year history. In its sixth year, however, Haas showed just how volatile the PGA Tour's playoffs can be once again. This time, he crumbled down the stretch at Crooked Stick to narrowly miss out on qualifying for the Tour Championship's 30-man field and continue an odd streak in which the defending FedEx Cup champion has never even made it back to East Lake. Follow @AlexMyers3 !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs");

10

Sep
Mon

UT's Stone rock steady in college debut

By Ryan HerringtonGOLF WORLD COLLEGE PLAYER OF THE WEEKSept. 3-9Brandon Stone, TexasThis summer Barry Havenga, an editor for Golf Digest South Africa, gave me a head's up about the 19-year-old from Pretoria joining the Longhorns...

09

Sep
Sun

Tiger's friend and foe: Advantage Rory

By John Strege It has become increasingly difficult to hang with Rory McIlroy these days, notwithstanding the curious and cozy relationship that apparently has permitted Tiger Woods to do so, at least away from a leaderboard. McIlroy, 23, won the BMW Championship on Sunday, his second straight victory and third in four starts, including the PGA Championship. This is Tiger terrain -- young and dominant. When Woods was both, others basked in his reflected glory, in and out of golf, from Mark O'Meara to Costner and Jordan, or Marko, Kev and MJ, as Tiger called them. Tiger now gives the appearance, at least, of being similarly smitten with the player who is auditioning for the role of his heir apparent. Maybe they're not BFFs, but Tiger and McIlroy obviously enjoy one another's company, which is wholly out of character for one of them. McIlroy, for his part, is an amiable superstar, one who exudes warmth and connects with people for reasons beyond his impressive skill. His love interest, tennis star Caroline Wozniacki, even calls McIlroy "the curly one," as she did via Twitter when he won the Deutsche Bank Championship a week earlier. He doesn't seem to mind. The public display of affection has never been part of Tiger's repertoire, and when it came to any who were viable threats to his supremacy, the notion that he was capable of warmth towards them was a foreign one. It is possible that Woods, at 36, has matured and we'll even concede that he has. But if he has mellowed as a result, it can't be in his competitive interest to have done so. Woods always internalized the competition, taking personally whatever threat it posed and responding in the best way he knew how, by burying it on the golf course. Recall that when Stephen Ames suggested Woods, as a result of his errant driving, was vulnerable at the Accenture Match Play Championship in 2006, this was Tiger's response in the wake of their match: "Nine and eight," he said, citing the score. Now here comes a young talent, the best since Tiger was 23, already a winner of two major championships, and Woods befriends him, meanwhile finishing T-4 at the BMW Championship and third at the Deutsche Bank Championship a week earlier, three and two strokes behind McIlroy. The temper tantrum that has been part of Woods' repertoire and even served a useful purpose, incentive to re-double his efforts at winning, seems to have gone missing. He was uncharacteristically talkative after his latest failure, even lauding McIlroy with words that others once routinely used in describing him: "He's putting on a show out there." It does not compute. Then again, maybe this is the new world order in golf. McIlroy's three most recent victories have come against the best players in the world. At one point on Sunday at Crooked Stick outside Indianapolis, he was tied with Lee Westwood, Phil Mickelson and Vijay Singh, with Dustin Johnson and Tiger, among others, in close pursuit. "It's great to win events like this when the quality of the fields are so good," McIlroy said. He, too, won this one without his A game, as Woods often did. It was a great show that failed to reach its full potential only because Tiger was unable to fulfill his obligation, increasingly the case, as it were. Woods has become an enigma. He is still one of the best players in the world (now No. 2 in the World Ranking, behind McIlroy), yet he seems somewhat out of kilter. A man who preferred keeping his friends separate from his foes, now is chasing one who is both. Advantage Rory. Follow @JohnStrege !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs");

08

Sep
Sat

Mickelson ties career birdie best, course record, and Singh for the lead on Saturday at Crooked Stick

By Dave ShedloskiCARMEL, Ind. -- Some people see the glass half-empty, others half-full. Phil Mickelson looks at it and simply wants to figure out how to fill it up. Emerging from a months-long period where his game "went south for awhile," Mickelson fired an 8-under-par 64 Saturday at Crooked Stick GC, and enters the final round of the BMW Championship tied atop the leaderboard with Vijay Singh.Photo: Scott Halleran/Getty Images "It was a fun day. I got it going with the putter. It's nice to be playing well again," said Mickelson, who tied his low round of the year. He fired a 64 in the final round of the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am when he won a showdown with Tiger Woods to register his 40th PGA Tour title.Related: Top FedEx Cup moments The left-hander, who sits at 16-under 200 through 54 holes, tied his career high with 10 birdies, the seventh time he had dropped that many, but it was the first time he had been so economical with his putting stroke since the opening round of the 2006 BellSouth Classic at TPC Sugarloaf. Mickelson arrived at Crooked Stick fresh off a T-4 finish at the Deutsche Bank Championship, ending an unseemly summer string of seven starts in which he had finished no better than T-36. As is his wont, Lefty looked upon his slide as an opportunity to scrutinize the various parts of his game rather than to fret over them. "It's actually been, looking back on it, a great three or four months, because as bad as I've played, it's forced me to really analyze and look at and dissect the parts of my game to get it back to where I wanted it to be," he said. "It's taken me some time, and certainly I have a little ways to go.Related: Phil Mickelson's swing sequence "When was it its best? What was I doing then that made it its best? How do I practice? How do I hit the shots? What allows me to have good distance control, trajectory, all those things," Mickelson added, noting the questions he was asking of himself. "Although it's taken me three, four months of poor play, I feel like now it's back to a level where I'm going to start playing the way I know I'm capable of playing." Certainly a key area of marked improvement has come on the greens after he changed to a claw-style putting grip two weeks ago at The Barclays. If Mickelson, 42, were to win Sunday, he would give himself a chance of capturing the FedExCup title, one of the few omissions in a resume that earned him entry into the World Golf Hall of Fame in May. (Which is about the time his struggles began, perhaps nothing more than a coincidence?) It also would allow him to settle a score going back two decades.Related: What's in Phil Mickelson's bag? Previous to this week's third playoff event, the only other occasion in which Crooked Stick hosted a PGA Tour event was the 1991 PGA Championship. The ninth alternate ended up winning, a guy named John Daly. By Mickelson's way of thinking, he should have been allowed to compete in that PGA. In January of '91, Mickelson, then the reigning U.S. Amateur champion, won his first tour title at the Northern Telecom Open. That he remained an amateur meant he couldn't compete in the PGA, which is restricted to professional players. Though he won the 2005 PGA, Mickelson still is irked by the circumstances. "I remember that I qualified for the tournament and wasn't allowed to play in it, and that really upset me back then," he said Saturday. "I won the Tucson Open in '91, which qualified me to play the PGA Championship, and I wasn't allowed to play because I wanted to graduate college and stay an amateur. I would have loved to have competed. I felt I deserved to after I had already qualified, and I look back on that 20 years later, and I'm still upset." Maybe he'll get over it with a win Sunday. Follow @DaveShedloski !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs");

08

Sep
Sat

Weekend Tip: Like Rory, re-route the club

By Roger SchiffmanManaging EditorGolf DigestTwitter @RogerSchiffmanHave you noticed an interesting thing about Rory McIlroy's swing as he's been on his tear this summer? Yes, he seems to be playing effortlessly--driving the ball beautifully, sticking his...

08

Sep
Sat

Monday Swing Analysis: Like Rory, re-route the club

By Roger SchiffmanManaging EditorGolf DigestTwitter @RogerSchiffmanHave you noticed an interesting thing about Rory McIlroy's swing as he's been on his tear this summer? Yes, he seems to be playing effortlessly--driving the ball beautifully, sticking his...

07

Sep
Fri

Golfer shot after errant drive hits house

By Derek EversGolf can be a trying sport, but it should never be a life-threatening one. Yet that's exactly the unlikely scenario that unfolded yesterday at the Lakeridge Golf Course in Reno, Nevada. According to AP, a pair of unidentified golfers were playing Lakeridge's 16th hole, when an errant shot hit the home of Jeff Fleming, shattering a window. Fleming, 53, was none too pleased, and according to police, he fired a shotgun at the pair, striking the one who hit his house. "The neighbors were shaking their heads, and we were shaking our heads, and no one could put rhyme or reason to this [shooting]. It's crazy," Lt. Keith Brown said. "I've been an officer for 25 years, and if you're here long enough, I guess you've seen everything." Brown added that neighbors also told investigators it was a "common, everyday deal" for stray golf balls to hit their homes. The area around the 16th hole was evacuated after the shooting and the golfer who was shot was rushed to an area hospital where he was treated for minor injuries to an arm and both legs. Fleming drove to a Reno attorney's office, where he surrendered without incident. He was booked at the Washoe County jail on felony charges of battery and assault with a deadly weapon. He was released early Friday after posting $40,000 bail. He's scheduled to appear Oct. 4 in Reno Justice Court. Follow @derekevers !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs");

07

Sep
Fri

Woods and McIlroy enjoy another day going toe-to-toe

By Dave ShedloskiCARMEL, Ind. -- Tiger Woods stepped up on the interview podium behind the 18th green at Crooked Stick GC Friday afternoon, noticed the microphone was a bit too low, and raised it toward his chin. It did not hide his mischievous smile as he said wryly, "Has Rory been here?" That left Woods one up for the day against the man who has become his top rival in golf. Related: Tiger's Many 'Bromances' Woods and Rory McIlroy, who indeed had just completed his post-round interview, are in a virtual dead heat for PGA Tour Player of the Year honors, and only Woods's biting witseparated them after two rounds of the BMW Championship, the third leg of the four-tournament Playoffs for the FedExCup. Each is at 12-under-par 132 through 36 holes at Crooked Stick, trailing the game's Energizer Bunny, the irrepressible Vijay Singh, by one stroke. That they're tied figures to be about right given their growing rivalry. Woods might have a height advantage over McIlroy, but the youngster from Northern Ireland is longer off the tee, and he is ranked No. 1 in the world while Tiger is No. 3. And while each man owns three victories in 2012, McIlroy has the PGA Championship and last week's Deutsche Bank Championship on his resume. They are 1-2, respectively, in the FedExCup standings, too.Related: Tiger's Variety Of Different LooksNeither professed to have his best game on display Friday, but Woods shot 67 with birdies on three of the last four holes, while McIlroy suffered four bogeys and still shot 68. The third member of the group, Nick Watney, was well back at five-under 139 after a 69. "Those guys gobbled up all the birdies," Watney lamented. About the only mishit Friday was the decision to group the players in threesomes for Saturday's third round due to a threat of inclement weather that could soften Crooked Stick even more, if that's possible. That decision robbed the tournament of a McIlroy-Woods pairing in the penultimate group. Instead, McIlroy tees off at 1:01 p.m. EDT with Singh and Ryan Moore. Woods is with Lee Westwood and Bo Van Pelt at 12:50 p.m. Not that either man cares. During a joint interview after Thursday's round, they were in mutual admiration society mode. On Friday, they had found their cocoons. "I'm concentrating on my own game," McIlroy, 23, said. "Of course I'm watching him hit his shots, as well.  But I mean, for the most part I'm just trying to shoot the best score possible out there that I can, and that's all I'm really trying to do." Woods, 35, was locked on numbers, not any nemesis. "I didn't have much today. Swing wasn't quite there, and I was just grinding along here and just trying to get to double digits under par," Woods said. "That was the goal, the way I was hitting it. I was just slapping it everywhere, and somehow just grind away and find a way to shoot something where I was in double digits by the end of the day, and I just happened to get a couple more." Woods hastened to the practice range after the round, and he hit balls for close to 30 minutes, predominantly working on his driver. McIlroy, who like Woods finished with a birdie, didn't linger at Crooked Stick. A little separation was probably not a bad thing, especially when so little separates the two rivals as the long season begins its turn towards the finish line. Oh, but Rory is one down on barbs.Follow @DaveShedloski !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs");

07

Sep
Fri

Weekend Getaways: 10 Great Towns For the NFL and Golf

Want to pair the NFL with great golf? Here are 10 towns to consider