by Shane Ryan
The moment it fell, he took the first major Sunday lead of his life. He and Phil pounded fists, clearly enjoying every minute of their excellent front nine, and the fans roared their approval.
—
Rory made par as they waited on the sixth tee, still a shot behind Fowler. He stalked up to join them on the tee box, and that’s when the strange scene played out that stuck in my head long after the tournament was over—Rory, in a mad, semi-hypnotic state, sitting by himself, mouth open, staring with a malevolent silence.
Fans and marshals lined the hillside behind the seventh green, holding binoculars and quiet signs. They threw their hands up in agony as Phil’s eagle putt refused to take the last break and drop, groaning in concert. He made birdie, though, and so did Rickie, who managed to put backspin on his shot out of the bunker despite a tricky lie, and holed his putt from six feet. That kept him one shot ahead of both Phil and Henrik Stenson, who had also birdied the seventh.
Behind them, Rory took command of the pairing from Wiesberger, who had bogeyed the sixth and wouldn’t make a single birdie all day on a very “gettable” course. Unlike Phil and Rickie, who were creating energy for each other, Rory was in the midst of a lonely chase. A bogey on six dropped him back to -11, three shots off the lead, but he recovered with an up-and-down from just beyond Rickie’s bunker on seven for birdie. When Stenson buried a twenty-six-footer on nine and Mickelson followed with a ten-footer on the same hole, he now trailed three players by two shots each.
As the back nine began, it looked like Rory’s immortal aura had faded. Stenson and Mickelson failed to birdie the difficult par-5 10th, but Fowler did not, sinking a twenty-eight-foot putt to grab solo command of the lead at -15 with just eight holes to play. Rory watched Fowler’s putt fall from the 10th fairway, where he stood over his 303-yard drive, and the roar of the fans told him that he trailed his American rival by three shots. He couldn’t wait much longer to make a move. He had already lost five strokes to Fowler, who was absolutely scorching, and even if he could catch him, Mickelson and Stenson had surged ahead as well.
With 281 yards remaining to the hole, he faced a hard choice. Nobody in the entire field had hit the green in two shots all day—not even Bubba Watson. Rory still had bad memories from Thursday, when he’d attempted a similar shot with a 3-wood and hit it out of bounds, leading to the double bogey that killed his hot start. If Fowler hadn’t just made his long birdie putt, Rory likely would have laid up.
That was no longer possible, so he pulled out the 3-wood again. His aim was to hit a “high, hard draw” as he explained later, letting the ball curve its way from right to left and settle onto the green. The minute he struck it, though, his mouth twisted up in distaste—the ball came out low and left, nothing like he’d planned. He saw it drift, and wondered if he was bound for another out-of-bounds penalty, which would bury him for good. Strangely, though, the ball began to fade, cutting back to the right and staying within the confines of the fairway. Rory marched ahead, watching intently as the ball hit a hard patch of turf and skipped onto the green. It didn’t stop rolling until it had come to rest seven feet from the cup.
It was by far the best shot of the tournament, and the most important shot Rory had hit all year. The fact that it was completely lucky made no difference to the men he was chasing—all they knew, from the roar of the gallery, was that Rory had done something amazing on the 10th. When he holed the eagle putt, he caught Mickelson and Stenson in one fell swoop, and served notice to Fowler that he was just one shot away, hot on his trail.
Phil and Rickie’s front nine momentum came to a screeching halt with that 3-wood, and the tone of the entire tournament changed. Now all the missed opportunities—Stenson’s eight-foot miss on the 11th when a birdie would have given him the outright lead, or Phil’s errant twelve-footer for birdie on the 10th—looked less like minor mistakes and more like fatal errors. There was no longer any comfort to be found in Valhalla—every chance they didn’t convert could be the one that buried them. The best player in the world was on the chase, and everybody knew he would close fast.
—
The challenge facing Rickie and Phil now was to continue putting out positive energy for each other, and keep the birdie streak alive on the back nine, when the pressure would feel quite different. In a strange way, they had to stay locked in a team effort against Rory—if it turned into a battle of lone wolves, there was little doubt who would win.
Rory’s eagle had transformed him into a predator, and facing the same tee shot on the 11th, he didn’t bother avoiding the bunker, choosing instead to go straight over it with a 6-iron. The result was brilliant, but he narrowly missed his thirteen-foot birdie attempt, granting his competitors a reprieve. The 12th hole, with its downhill approach, nearly brought Phil down on its own. He made a mess of it, and was forced to pitch his third shot twenty-eight feet past the hole. From there, facing a sure bogey, he drained the long putt and punched his fist in relief. Rickie found trouble, too, but a good chip set him up for a short par putt. Ahead of them, Stenson birdied 13 after an excellent approach to the island green, and tied the lead.
Before Rickie and Phil could get to the 13th tee, Rory, high on a hill above them, stuck his approach on 12 to eight feet. Again, it seemed like the moment when he would catch them, and again, surprisingly, he missed his short birdie and settled for par. Another hole, another reprieve, but Rory was clearly dialed in, and it was only a matter of time before he converted. Phil and Rickie, on the other hand, had begun to scramble after their daylong birdie fest. Rory stole the initiative, and if Phil and Rickie didn’t take it back quickly, they were doomed.
When writers denounce Valhalla, they inevitably mention the 13th hole, a short par 4 with an island green that many see as a pointless novelty. Unlike Sawgrass, the hole here is so short that players can take a safe iron off the tee and leave themselves with any distance they want—usually somewhere from 90 to 105 yards—into the pin. It looks nice, with a circular wall of stacked stone rising from the water and framing the green, but as a professional golf hole, it doesn’t make much sense. On Sunday, the PGA of America tried to heighten the difficulty by placing the flag on the far right of the green, just a few feet from the water.
Phil attacked from the fairway, eyes now shining with their lunatic fervor, and stuck his wedge to twelve feet. Rickie, on the other hand, hit a mediocre shot that left him thirty-two feet, and he never had the right line on the birdie putt. Phil, with a chance for the outright lead, hit his worst putt of the day—a total misread—and ahead on the 14th, Stenson fell back to -14 with a bogey.
Their missteps gave Rory his third chance to equal the leaders, and this time he didn’t waste it. With ninety-two yards to the green, he ignored the water and flew his sand wedge directly at the pin. It stopped two feet away, and he dropped the birdie with a fist pump and a twirl of the putter. The three were now deadlocked at -15 with five holes to play. On paper, Phil and Rickie still had the better Sunday, but for Rory, it felt like a clean slate. He had the momentum, and more importantly, they were fighting on his turf—the closing stretch.
Fowler did him a favor on the 14th hole, a tricky par 3, when he hit a bad push off the tee. The ball flew toward the gallery and landed in the mud below the hole. He took his relief and hit a nice flop shot up onto the green, but couldn’t sink his 18-footer for par. Far back on the green, you could see Rory’s silhouette in the sun—he looked impatient—and after Phil made his three, Rory hit a similar tee shot, failing to catch the ridge and relegating him to a two-putt for par.
The designers had made an alteration to the 15th green, replacing a collection area just over Brush Run Creek with a greenside bunker, and the change had the desired effect, forcing all three to hit their approach far past the front right pin location. Rory came the closest, just eighteen feet away, but none could sink their birdie putts, and they moved on to 16, Phil and Rory tied at -15, Rickie one behind.
The 16th hole is one of the har
dest on the course—a brutally long 516-yard par 4 with a narrow fairway and a gradual incline. The skies had grown dark over Valhalla, and the easy banter between Phil and Rickie had vanished over the past three holes. Like it or not, they were now on their own against Rory. Rickie in particular was struggling, having lost his ability to hit close approaches. Facing a difficult tee shot, he hit another bad push, sending the ball over the trees and the creek on the right side of the hole and into the rough on the 15th fairway. To get to his ball, he had to circle behind the 15th green, where Rory and Wiesberger were making their putts. Again, Rory didn’t acknowledge him.
As luck would have it, Rickie had a small window, and could still access the green with a high draw over the trees. He and his caddie, Joe Skovron, walked back and forth on a scouting mission, and in the meantime, Phil hit his second shot into the left rough, still twenty yards from the hole. As Rickie waited for Skovron to return, Rory took the unprecedented step of hitting his drive. If it had gone right, it could have landed by Rickie, or even hit him, but it was dead straight—a 331-yard beauty that split the fairway. It was as though he wanted to emphasize the symbolism of the moment—he was nipping at their heels, now quite literally.
Rickie realized there was no choice, and opted to go for the green. The shot that followed might have been his most impressive of the day—a near-perfect soaring draw over the trees that hit the front of the green and rolled off the edge. From there, he struck a hundred-foot lag putt, and made the short comebacker for par. Phil was in trouble of his own, and nearly got out of it in spectacular fashion when his pitch from the rough caught the lip of the hole. Instead of falling, it ran past, and the almost-birdie had turned into a ten-foot par putt. His line couldn’t have been better, but his speed was tentative, and the ball stopped three inches from the hole. A chorus of groans resounded from the fans on the hillside, stacked on top of one another.
The run was over. Back in the fairway, Rory McIlroy had regained the solo lead.
It was now past eight p.m., and the players were engaged in a second battle against darkness. Rory missed a twenty-two-foot birdie attempt that might have closed out the tournament on 16, but neither Phil nor Rickie could capitalize on 17. Once again, Rickie left himself a long two-putt, and Phil needed a brilliant pitch from the rough to save par. Behind them, Rory put his tee shot into a bunker on the left side of the fairway, but it traveled 318 yards before it got there, and gave him a good look at the green. He took out his 9-iron, sent the ball into the dark sky, and twirled the club as he watched it fall. It settled eleven feet away, and now he had his chance to secure a two-shot lead.
The putt was a curler, and he started the ball well outside the hole. As it traced its way back, the result felt inevitable—the putt would fall, and the lone wolf would walk to the final hole leading by two, ready to close out an astounding summer. And that’s just what happened.
—
Rory’s biggest concern now was finishing the round—it was almost eight thirty as he hustled up to the 18th tee box, where Phil and Rickie had just hit their tee shots. He knew that as long as he and Wiesberger hit their drives, the PGA of America had to give them the option of finishing the hole. The problem was they’d have to wait for the others to clear the fairway, and in that time—who knew?—the horn might blow to stop play. Rory had been ravenous throughout the back nine, and the last thing he wanted to do was lose his momentum and let that killer instinct seep away overnight. On TV, the CBS announcers were arguing that he should call it a day and avoid all the risks that darkness entails, but Rory had a one-track mind, and delaying the finish wasn’t on his agenda.
He found Fowler as he began to walk off the tee box.
“We want to hit now,” he said, after a short preamble.
Grantland’s Bryan Curtis, on the scene—I was a few steps behind at the tee—described the look on Fowler’s face at that point as “confused and semi-cowed.”
“Want me to tell Phil and them?” Fowler asked, looking down the fairway where Mickelson had walked away.
A rumble of thunder echoed in the sky as Fowler left. He caught up with Phil, and along with two officials they agreed to let the players tee off. In his haste, Rory’s drive flew right—dangerously close to the creek running along the side of the hole. From the tee, the sky was too dark to follow its path, but David Feherty received word over his headset and conveyed the message to Rory—safe. The ball stopped just a few feet from the red hazard line—only the soft turf had slowed the ball before the water. Rory’s rush to finish now looked like a huge risk, and one that might cost him the title he had seemed to win on 17.
Storm clouds gathered, and rain began to fall as the sunset shone with pinks and blues over the clubhouse. Rory looked on impatiently as Wiesberger hit, and then sped down after his ball. He waited as Phil and Rickie made their approaches—both of them under the impression that Rory would at least par, and they needed to make eagle. Rickie reached the green, ending up fifty feet from the hole, while Phil came up just short, landing in the fairway twenty-five yards away.
They began the uphill walk out of the valley and up to the green, and behind them, Rory shot out his arms out in surprised protest.
“Can we play up?” he shouted, but they continued up the slope. He appealed to the officials then, and the eventual verdict reached Phil and Rickie—Rory would be allowed to play. As Wiesberger hit his approach, Phil had an animated discussion with the official—it was normal to allow the players behind to tee off, as a courtesy, but hitting up to the green at the same time? There was no reason for it, and Phil was practically fuming. He wanted a chance to perhaps make eagle, or birdie, and apply pressure to Rory’s approach shot.
After the round, he and Rickie would put a good face on the controversy—the most they’d say was that they weren’t expecting the approach shots, and that it probably wouldn’t have made a difference—but privately, Phil was furious.
The irony of the whole situation was that Rory was so intent on finishing that he was making a mess of a rather easy hole. He hit his approach into the tricky front bunker, and Phil nearly holed his eagle pitch from off the green—an incredible run that came inches away from putting true pressure on the leader. He tapped in for birdie instead, and Rickie couldn’t even manage that—in the near-complete darkness, he missed an eight-footer to stay tied with Phil.
They walked off the green, still upset at how the last hole had played out, and only the final pair remained. Just like at the British, Rory’s last test was to get the ball out of the bunker and two-putt. Unlike Hoylake, though, he had to leave his bunker shot below the hole in order to avoid a disastrous mistake. He hit out to thirty-four feet, which was not the easiest two-putt under the circumstances. As flashbulbs lit up the darkness, and the wind and rain whipped the flags above the scoreboard, he struck his birdie attempt and watched it roll, and roll, and roll. When it stopped, it rested ten inches from the cup.
He had to mark the ball to wait for Wiesberger to finish, and while he did, he took in the scene, from gallery to green. His eyes then were something to behold—lit up with raw energy as he breathed hard in the twilight, looking as though he might levitate over the grass.
In a moment, he would tap in and become the third-youngest player, after Jack and Tiger, to win four majors. It would cement his status as the sport’s new superstar, and give him primacy over all his peers. For now, though, all you could see was the fierce animal instinct as he surveyed his turf—the battlefield on which he had fought and scrapped, refusing to concede a blessed inch.
—
Fowler stood glum in the flash area after the round, answering a series of feeble questions from the press.
“This is the first one that really hurts,” he said, and you could tell he meant it.
“How good is Rory?” asked a voice from the scrum.
“Yeah, he’s good,” said Rickie, too drained to even be upset at the question. His voice nearly broke as he continued to answer t
he questions, and he seemed to be on the verge of tears.
Amy Mickelson gave Rickie’s sister, Taylor, a pep talk—“That’s a heartbreaker, but my gosh, this year!”—and David Feherty found Rory’s dad, Gerry, beneath the clubhouse awning to congratulate him.
Finally, after fulfilling his press obligations, Rickie disappeared into the locker room with Sam MacNaughton, who had shielded him from redundant questions and placated a jabbering woman who asked Rickie for his autograph during a television interview. The two of them vanished past the cops guarding the door, and I’d bet anything that when they were finally alone, Rickie broke.
—
Rory, on the other hand, could have stayed all night. He had dominated his opponents by sheer will, clawing back strokes after a bad start, all the way to another emphatic finish. Watching him on the course, you saw a force of nature, but on the podium, he was funny and insightful and eminently human. After his press conference, I caught him just before he drove off in a golf cart. At that moment, I wanted to know what he had watched on Saturday night, following the Jackass Number Two and Kick-Ass 2 screenings that had seen him through Hoylake and Akron. The answer this time was Suits, a USA Network law drama—as far as I could tell, his only disappointing answer of the day.
He sped away then—bound for wherever heroes go after Valhalla—and the Sunday we’d been waiting for all season long drew to an end. For one year, at least, the PGA Championship could put aside its identity crisis and stake its claim as the year’s best major. The fervent galleries, the striking course, and the delirious Sunday sprint set up the dramatic finale, where a twenty-five-year-old stormed the castle gates and took his place on the sport’s vacated throne.