McIlroy’s moment: Why winning the Masters this year would mean more

Your 54-hole leader or co-leaders at this week’s Barbasol Championship and Open Championship will be asked a lot of questions, many of them predictable. What would it mean to win? What’s going right this week? Think you’ll sleep much? The next day, he/they will wake up and knock around their rental house/hotel room. They’ll eat, watch TV, check the phone. Finally, they will go to the course, and not win. Not if form holds, anyway. Through the John Deere Classic, just nine players have converted a 54-hole lead into a win this season on the PGA TOUR. Two of those, Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth, had done it twice, meaning 11 of 36 tournaments have been won by a third-round leader/co-leader, with 11 remaining on the schedule. This year’s third-round leaders are converting 31% of the time, which is way lower than the gold standard in this category, Tiger Woods (92%). It’s lower, too, than the win-conversion rate for this year’s second-round leaders (16 of 36, 44%), despite second-round leaders being further from the goal line. Depending on what happens from here to the season-ending TOUR Championship at East Lake, Sept. 21-24, this could be the worst season for 54-hole leaders in at least a decade—even worse than 2012 and 2007, when the win-conversion rate was just 16 of 44, or 36%. What exactly is happening here? Here are five theories. THE MARKED MAN PROBLEM Some leads are blown, some are lost. Patrick Rodgers summoned admirable touch under pressure as he barely missed chipping in from behind the 18th green at the John Deere Classic, a chip he had to make. He shot a 1-under 70 to lose to Bryson DeChambeau (65) by one. Rodgers didn’t so much lose as DeChambeau won. “You’ve got to just keep making birdies,â€� says Troy Merritt, who cites the 2015 RBC Heritage, where he shot a final-round 69 only to have his doors blown off by Jim Furyk (63) and Kevin Kisner (64). “Any of the guys out here are very capable of shooting a low number.â€� Steve Stricker has never lost after entering the last round with the solo lead, going seven for seven. (He did finish T3 after taking the lead into the last round of the 90-hole CareerBuilder Challenge in 2009.) And yet even Stricker appreciates how hard it is to close on TOUR. “You go to bed as a marked man,â€� he says. “You kind of feel like you should win, you expect to win, and always the last day there’s a few challenges. The wind will change, or it’s a tougher day. It’s just hard. You’re the guy that everybody is chasing. They can come out free-wheeling and you’re kind of protecting, and it’s hard to protect.â€� But to chase? That’s way more fun. Said Jon Rahm after he came from behind to win the Farmers Insurance Open for his first TOUR victory, in January: “I knew I had to go get it.â€� TOO MUCH TIME TO THINK “How did you sleep last night?â€� NBC’s Bob Costas asked third-round leader Paul Goydos on Sunday morning at THE PLAYERS Championship in 2008. “On my back,â€� Goydos deadpanned. It was a funny line, and Goydos held up well before falling to Sergio Garcia in a sudden-death playoff. Still, you knew what Costas was hinting at. “Fitfully,â€� the leader might’ve said. Justin Thomas shot a 9-under 63 in the third round of the U.S. Open at Erin Hills last month. While not leading—he was one behind Brian Harman—Thomas had commanded so much attention he may as well have been. Then he shot a final-round 75 to tie for ninth. “I’d never teed off this late before,â€� Thomas said, “so that was different. Teeing off at almost 3 o’clock Central Time is just bizarre for me, because I wake up pretty early. So, it was a lot of kind of laying around and just trying to stay off the phone and try to stay away from reading stuff just because there are so many things out there that are being said or written. “I just tried to stay away from it, but, yeah, it was hard to. But I would like to think that’s not why I played how I did today. I just didn’t play well.â€� Sports psychologists tell us to stay in the now, but it’s easier said than done. Sometimes the overactive mind can’t help but race ahead to all those FedExCup points and Presidents/Ryder Cup points on offer, not to mention the mountains of money and accolades and exemptions. “That’s all you think about,â€� Stricker says. “You sit in your room and have breakfast but all you do is think about it—that tee time can’t come quick enough. It’s just a challenge.â€� MICROPHONE FATIGUE In cycling, the wind in the leader’s face is literal. In golf, it’s figurative. There are airwaves to fill and stories to file, which means the leader spends a lot of time yapping. Take David Lingmerth and Sebastian Munoz, who recently led after each of the first three rounds, Lingmerth at the Quicken Loans National and Munoz at The Greenbrier Classic. Each met the media for three straight days to answer various questions, inevitably addressing something he might have rather not addressed: winning. Munoz said he was watching 1980s movies like Ferris Buehler’s Day Off to take his mind off things. Lingmerth, a squat, 29-year-old Swede who had already won the 2015 Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide, seemed to try and psych himself up, saying he didn’t anticipate capturing just a half-dozen tournaments or so in his career. “I envision winning a lot more than that,â€� he said. Not surprisingly, given the tenor of the season, each lost. “It was just a new experience for me,â€� Munoz says. “I had no memories to draw on, so that’s what made it tough. And I got off to a tough start Sunday. But I was proud of how I steadied after that.â€� (Munoz ultimately signed for a final-round 72 to finish T3.) Even players who lead after just one round, the third, often struggle. “What happens is, let’s say a guy shoots 7-under on Saturday and he takes the lead,â€� says Bubba Watson, who is three of 10 at converting third-round leads/co-leads into victories. “But [the media] weren’t talking to him on the first two days. Right? “Well, guess what? Now all the media attention comes, and it puts thoughts in your head: ‘Can you win?’ ‘You haven’t won yet.’ ‘You’ve only won nine; you need to win a 10th.’ ‘You’ve never won a major.’ The media attention makes it worse, but it’s still there.â€� NOT JUST A ROOKIE THING One of the commonly held beliefs about closing is that untested players like Munoz have problems with it, but once they “get over the hump,â€� they’re fine. It’s not true. Zach Johnson admitted he stopped making birdies when he got near the lead at the Deere. Phil Mickelson said he flat-out panicked when he saw his name atop the leaderboard at the FedEx St. Jude Classic, promptly making a triple-bogey to plummet down the board. Consider Martin Kaymer at the 2014 U.S. Open. He already had won one major, and yet Kaymer, who led after every round at Pinehurst No. 2, told his caddie Craig Connelly on the morning of the final round that it would be the toughest 18 holes they’d ever played. Jordan Spieth calls it “chasing the ghostâ€�—the feeling you get when there’s no one ahead of you on the leaderboard. And it’s not easy. Having led after each of the first three rounds at the recent Travelers Championship, Spieth had to fight hard to win. (He holed out from a bunker to beat Daniel Berger in a sudden-death playoff.) The finish was in stark contrast to the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in February, where he’d held a six-shot lead through 54 holes. “You’ve got to keep resetting goals,â€� Spieth said. You also have to not panic when you’re caught. That’s where the caddie comes in, and Spieth praised his man Michael Greller’s well-timed exhortations at the Travelers. “He’s a closer,â€� Greller said afterward. “And that’s what I kept telling him. ‘Dude, you’re a closer. You know how to close and you’ve got a killer instinct.’â€� He was right. The Travelers marked the 13th time Spieth had led or co-led through three rounds on TOUR, and the eighth time he’d won. He’s converting at a spiffy 62%. ‘IN CONTENTION’ NEEDS REDEFINING A lot can happen in one hole, but 18 of them? Forget it. There are too many variables to anoint anyone the top contender a day or even five hours before the trophy ceremony. That’s why Dr. Morris Pickens, a sports psychologist who works with Zach Johnson, Stewart Cink and others out of the Sea Island (Georgia) Golf Performance Center, believes the entire concept of the 54-hole leader/leaders is grossly overhyped. “You might think that you’re in contention because of the way people talk on TV,â€� Pickens says. “But I tell my guys ‘contention’ doesn’t exist until there are three or four holes left. “Let’s say you’re at THE PLAYERS at TPC Sawgrass,â€� he adds, “and you’re looking at your second shot on 16. That’s when you’d need to take into account where you are in relation to everyone else, but I tell my guys to keep your head down until then.â€� Maybe Pickens is right. How many times have we trained our eyes on the third-round leader/s only to watch everything get turned upside-down Sunday afternoon? The most indelible example: Retief Goosen and Jason Gore played their way into the last group at the 2005 U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2, but shot 81 and 84, respectively. Michael Campbell won. It happens on the other side of the Atlantic, too. Of the last 20 Open Championships, 10 have been won by someone other than the guy/s who held the 54-hole lead and were ushered into the media room to talk about it. Someone other than the guy whose cell phone lights up with messages from his friends and family Saturday night, as if he’s already almost won something. “That’s the way people are raised,â€� Pickens says. “It’s the way tournaments are framed. But it’s the player’s choice if they want to buy into it.â€�

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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Welsh golfer Jamie Donaldson followed his opening 62 with a solid 3-under-par 69 to take the clubhouse lead in the weather-interrupted second round of the Dubai Desert Classic on Friday. Tee times were delayed for nearly three hours because of thick fog. That led to none of the afternoon groups, including Rory McIlroy and defending champion Sergio Garcia, being able to finish their second round when darkness suspended play. Donaldson is 13-under 131 at the halfway stage, with Li Haotong second, one shot behind after a consecutive 66s. Branden Grace shot 65 to lie third in the clubhouse at 11 under. Miguel Angel Jimenez showed at 54 he could still compete with the youngsters as he moved to 10 under with a 68. Thomas Aiken (67) was tied with Jimenez. Among those still on the course, McIlroy was 10 under after 11 holes. Garcia and Henrik Stenson were 6- and 7-under par respectively playing alongside McIlroy. Rory has two top-3 finishes in his last three starts worldwide. He finished T5 when play was suspended. Tommy Fleetwood was 2 under for the day after 10 holes to move to a 5 under total. Donaldson has been ranked as high as 23rd in the world and has fallen to 292nd. He made four birdies and bogeyed the par-3 11th in his 69. He attributed his return to form to almost two months of not touching his clubs over the winter break. “We play so much golf all year. I’ve got two young kids; it’s time to have some family time with them for a couple of months and it was great,” said Donaldson, a three-time winner on the European Tour. “I came out for the season nice and fresh and you’re reacting more to what you’ve turned up with, as opposed to slogging yourself to death over the winter. To each his own. And then nearer the time, start playing a little bit. “Worked on my putting with Phil Kenyon, and that made a big difference. I have putted much better this week. It’s a case of playing the shots that you know you can play.” Li, who was a star for the Asia team recently in their narrow loss to Europe in the EurAsia Cup, made a double bogey on the first hole – his 10th – but 10 birdies more than made up for that mishap. The Chinese who has risen to No. 60 in the world rankings, said the morning delay did not bother him and in fact helped him relax. “I saw another Chinese player (Wu Ashun) and we stayed in the players’ lounge and played FIFA on PlayStation. So it was fun. Just had a lot of time to relax,” said Li, who won that match 3-1. The second round will start early, and the third round will be played as a three-ball.

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