For Rory McIlroy, chasing No. 1 again, it’s time to ‘go’

Imagine you are 41. Or 71. Or 101. Now imagine life has lately felt like a 1,000-piece puzzle of white space. It’s not supposed to be white space; it’s supposed to be a vivid picture, bursting with color and texture. You’ve just got to see it in your mind’s eye, and so you keep working, piece by agonizing piece, because it’s there, somewhere, and you’ve still got something left to give. Much ink has been spilled on the appeal of Tiger Woods, who this week at the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas makes his first competitive start in 10 months. But the appeal of late-career Woods boils down to this: He thinks he still has something left to give, and who among us can’t relate? Regardless of age and circumstances, we ALL think we have something left to give. “I think Tiger will definitely win another tournament,� Hank Haney, one of his former coaches, said on his SiriusXM PGA TOUR Radio show on Monday. “I think he’s got a good shot at winning a major. If he practices part-time and he is healthy enough to play 15 to 18 tournaments and is not on pain-killer medication and is able to move freely like he is now, I think he can win golf tournaments.� Woods has 79 TOUR victories, including 14 majors, and we all know these numbers by heart because they have been frozen in time. But could there be more? Tom Brady and Peyton Manning won Super Bowls at 39, Manning after having undergone cervical neck fusion. Jack Nicklaus won the Masters and Johnny Miller the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am at 46, Miller after being chased into semi-retirement by the yips. “Handsome� Harry Gant was NASCAR’s oldest to take the checkered flag at 52, his left-turn signal no doubt blinking the whole way at the 1992 Champion Spark Plug 400. You think Woods has no chance? Consider: When he came back at least year’s Hero, his surgically repaired back still not quite surgically repaired (as we now know), he paced the field with 24 birdies. On Monday, news began trickling out of the Bahamas regarding his latest Hero-ics: Woods was outdriving his practice-round playing partner, Patrick Reed, by anywhere from 10-20 yards. Haney went on the air with praise for Woods’ latest swing, and Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee took to Twitter with similarly positive reviews. The pessimist in us says to give it up, seeing as how Woods has made just one PGA TOUR start in the last two years, and he hasn’t won since 2013. The optimist reminds that he won five times that year. And the heart says that it’s better to dream. Always. That might sound preposterous, but then so did the idea that Nolan Ryan would pitch his sixth ho-hitter at age 43, and Sam Snead would win the Greater Greensboro Open at Sedgefield Country Club for the eighth time at 52, and, well, you get the idea. Doug Ferguson of Sports Betting News points out that this marks the 10th time Woods has returned from layoffs of 10 weeks or longer. All but two of those layoffs have been injury-related—balky knee; ruptured Achilles; bad back—and not all of the comebacks have gone well. Last year, despite making all those birdies at the Hero, and shooting a second-round 65, Woods finished 22 shots behind the winner, Hideki Matsuyama. Of the 17 players who finished (Justin Rose withdrew), Woods beat only Russell Knox and Emiliano Grillo. Still, Woods had big plans for 2017. Then he missed the cut at the Farmers Insurance Open, shot an opening 77 and withdrew from the Dubai Desert Classic a week later, pulled out of his next two scheduled starts, and had surgery in April. So here he comes again, and what are we to think? Should we decry our own stupidity for falling for this old ruse again? Nah. Today is a day to appeal to our better selves and remember that Hank Aaron hit his 715th home run at age 40, and Pablo Picasso painted “Guernica� at 55. To accept that Father Time is undefeated, yes, but to accept, too, that we all have something left to give, and the essence of life itself is finding out exactly what that is.

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There is the crowd favorite, Rory McIlroy, and the guys from LIV. There is the world No. 1 and those chasing their first major. Get ready for a wild weekend at The Open.

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PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Rory McIlroy is seven weeks away from turning 30, and a decade removed from getting kicked out of bars in nearby Jacksonville Beach for underage drinking, a missed cut at THE PLAYERS Championship in 2009 leaving him with a free weekend. His once untamed hair has been replaced by a shorter, more professional look. But that’s just a visual difference of his maturity. Having entered what he describes as the “second phase of my career,â€� McIlroy has replaced peak-and-valley results with consistency and patience. He has replaced confidence – perhaps at times bordering on cockiness – with comfortability. Soon, he’ll celebrate his second wedding anniversary; no longer does he define himself by his golf results. He sees life through a different lens now. “I’ve been preaching perspective,â€� he explained, “and I feel like I’ve got a pretty good handle on that perspective.â€� Ten years into a PGA TOUR career that will one day end up in the World Golf Hall of Fame, McIlroy also has experiences. Many on the positive side; some not so good. Call it scar tissue, call it seasoning – all of it paid off Sunday in the pressure cooker at TPC Sawgrass. RELATED: Champion’s Wall | Winner’s Bag | By the numbers: No. 17 | Round 4 review | Furyk shines with runner-up finish Shaking off an early double bogey, McIlroy worked his way back up the leaderboard, then delivered the key shots down the stretch to emerge with the new gold trophy as THE PLAYERS champion, beating 48-year-old Jim Furyk by a stroke. It ends a drought of just over a year since his last TOUR win at Bay Hill. More important, it should end any chatter that McIlroy can’t deliver down the stretch. McIroy entered this week with top-6 finishes in each of his five previous starts. He had chances to win in Hawaii, in Mexico and last week in his defense at Bay Hill two hours down the road at Orlando. Some saw the results as a precursor to the inevitable. “At the start of the season when I was looking at his setup just on TV, he just looked a lot more relaxed,” said Jason Day, paired with McIlroy on Sunday. “You could tell that he was, just his demeanor was a lot different compared to last year, and it was just a matter of time, it was going to happen.” Yet his failure to close – he also had not won a tournament worldwide in the last nine times he had played in the final group – had the buzzards circling. However, McIlroy entered Sunday drawing on the positives he had seen in that stretch. In his first 23 rounds of 2019, just one was over par. He was playing brilliantly – and he drew on those positive vibes in his final-round 70. “I think all the experiences I’ve had over the last few weeks in terms of trying to win and not getting over the line definitely helped me today,â€� McIlroy said. “Maybe if I hadn’t had those experiences, I wouldn’t be sitting up here with this trophy. I’m thankful and grateful for those experiences.â€� But it wasn’t just the last two months that McIlroy leaned on to navigate a leaderboard in which a half-dozen players had a share of the lead at one point or another. As he saw the jumbled leaderboard, McIlroy thought back to his BMW Championship win in the 2012 FedExCup Playoffs at Crooked Stick (which, like TPC Sawgrass, is a Pete Dye course). It was another stacked leaderboard against the game’s biggest names – Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, to name a few. McIlroy emerged with three back-nine birdies to take the tournament “by the scruff of the neck.â€� “I sort of thought back to that today,â€� McIlroy said. “I don’t know why it popped into my head – I guess all these experiences are so helpful to draw on.â€� At the par-5 16th, McIlroy two-putted from 19 feet for birdie to pass Furyk and take the solo lead at 16 under. As he walked toward the iconic 17th – perhaps the toughest Sunday walk in golf with a one-shot lead – he told himself that he needed just three more good swings. The first one came when he choked down on a 9-iron at the 17th, his tee shot landing safely on the green for a sigh-of-relief par. The second was off the tee at the par-4 18th – among the toughest tee shots in golf. The night before, McIlroy spent time on the range, hoping to straighten out a driver that had hit just 4 of 14 fairways in the third round. He doesn’t usually make those post-round range visits, but the driver is the most important weapon in McIlroy’s bag, and he could ill afford a repeat in the final round. “It was the club yesterday that didn’t behave,â€� he said. “I gave it a couple of slaps on the range and it behaved itself today.â€� And he also drew on another experience – this time at the 2008 Hong Kong Open, when Rory was a teenager playing on the European Tour. He had a chance to win, even though he was uncomfortable with the tee shot at 18 all week. That Sunday, he pulled the 3-wood, committed to the shot and piped the drive. Although he eventually lost a three-man playoff that day, that one tee shot 11 years ago paid off this time. “I don’t believe in anything really, but I think the golf gods will reward you for just making a good, committed swing,â€� McIlroy said. “And any time I have a tough tee shot, I stand up, I pick my target and I swing as hard as I can. And it usually works out because you’ve committed to it, you’ve got a clear head.” “The last two days I’ve piped it down 18 by just remembering that tiny little thing from Hong Kong.â€� Safely on the fairway, he now faced the last of his three swings. From 155 yards, his approach covered the flagstick – a courageous line, to say the least, given the front-left pin placement just steps from the water. When he reached his ball 13 feet away, he knew the tournament was his. The win is the 15th of his TOUR career, and he now joins Tiger Woods as the only golfers to win a PLAYERS, the FedExCup, a World Golf Championships event and multiple majors. And his 15 wins before age 30 have been matched by just five other golfers – Woods, Mickelson, Jack Nicklaus, Johnny Miller and Tom Watson. Pretty heady company. But the celebration was muted as he rolled in his winning putt and headed to the scoring area. Sure, he was happy to win. His newfound perspective, though, has him keeping his emotions in check. He wants success in life, not just inside the ropes. “I desperately wanted the win today, but it’s just another day, it’s just another step in the journey,â€� he said. “… It’s a huge tournament to win. I’m very proud and very honored, but it’s just a step in the right direction.â€� Maybe it was just meant to be, a Northern Irishman winning on St. Patrick’s Day. Asked if he had ever previously won on this holiday, McIlroy mentioned last year at Bay Hill, when the third round was on St. Patrick’s Day, a two-day celebration. Then he pulled up the sweater he was wearing to reveal a green shirt. “It’s not a bad weekend for me,â€� he said, his Irish eyes doing all the smiling.

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