U.S.’s Nelly Korda builds 4-shot lead at Olympics

Can Brooks Koepka get to double-digit majors? Should we worry about Tiger, or was last week simply a blip? We ask our experts the big questions from the PGA Championship.

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A smile crosses Heath Slocum’s face as he relives the moment from nine years ago. It was a chance meeting with then-Commissioner Tim Finchem, whose dry wit would occasionally bubble to the surface when he wasn’t conducting vital business from the PGA TOUR’s highest office. Finchem had a message for Slocum. “Thanks for ruining the best playoff ever,â€� he said with a wink while trying to suppress his grin. Slocum knew Finchem was just teasing, but as with most sarcasm, there was likely a modicum of truth to the line. The Louisiana native most certainly did deny the golf world a truly epic playoff, one that would have included multi-major winners with Hall of Fame credentials; an ultra-likable and late-blooming star; and the world’s top golfer who had spent the previous 12 years redefining the sport. Oh, and the playoff would have unfolded at the most unique setting in golf, right across the river from the largest city in the U.S. and media capital of the world, and in the shadow of the nation’s symbol of freedom. Tiger Woods vs. Ernie Els vs. Padraig Harrington vs. Steve Stricker — and, of course, Slocum too – at Liberty National. A tournament (then The Barclays; now THE NORTHERN TRUST) on the line, as well as early ramifications on the FedExCup Playoffs and the chase for its $10 million bonus. Tense. Delicious. Even Slocum, nine years later, had to admit the obvious. “Would’ve been a good playoff under those conditions,â€� he shrugged. Instead, his 20-foot par-saving putt on the 72nd hole stunned the gallery and saved all of us the trouble of extra holes. Slocum, then the world’s 197th-ranked player, finished one stroke better than four players each ranked inside the world’s top 25. It wasn’t exactly like the Grinch stealing Christmas. Slocum is too nice of a guy for that. Still … “That would’ve been some place to have a playoff, especially in the city, in New York,â€� Els said recently. “It would’ve been unbelievable. It would’ve been great.â€� “Good atmosphere at a fun place – yeah, it would’ve been cool to see how that would’ve played out,â€� echoed Stricker. An hour or so after his putt, Slocum used the words “magicalâ€� and incredibleâ€� to describe his feelings. The emotions are just as strong nine years later as he discusses the most unlikely win in FedExCup Playoffs history. “Right week. Right course,â€� he said at a rare TOUR appearance, this one at the Barracuda Championship. “The venue, the field, the finish — I couldn’t have written the script any better.â€� But what about the script that wasn’t written? SLAYING THE TIGER Tiger Woods arrived at Liberty National ranked No. 1 in the world and No. 1 in FedExCup points. It had been a typically dominant season – five wins to that point, made even more impressive that he was coming off knee surgery the previous year. But he hadn’t won a major in 2009, and in fact, had just finished runner-up to Y.E. Yang at the PGA Championship in his previous start two weeks earlier. The outcome was shocking: It was the first time in Tiger’s career he failed to close out a major after leading by 54 holes. “That night was tough, no doubtâ€� Woods said in his pre-tournament interview. Steve Stricker was No. 6 in the world and No. 2 in FedExCup points, right behind Woods. He had won twice that season, including a three-man playoff at Colonial. Padraig Harrington was 11th in the world and 66th in FedExCup points. He had won three majors in the previous two years but was winless in 2009. Even so, Harrington felt he had raised the level of consistency in his game, especially from tee to green. And he was heating up. He entered Liberty National off back-to-back top-10s — a T2 at the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational (won by Woods) and a T10 at the PGA (he was in contention until a quintuple bogey midway through his final round). Ernie Els was 25th in the world and 47th in points. He had won at least one worldwide event in each of the previous 17 years, but like Harrington, was winless in 2009. That made him hungry to maintain his streak, although he was running out of opportunities. As for Slocum? Although he was 197th in the world, the more important thing was his FedExCup ranking: 124th. He had to sweat out his position the week before after missing the cut at the Wyndham Championship – it was his 10th missed cut in his first 23 starts that year — and didn’t know he was guaranteed a spot until the final putt dropped. Nearly 44 percent of his points had been accumulated in his two top-10 finishes. In essence, he was the next-to-last man in the field. Troy Matteson had one less FedExCup point, leaving him at No. 125. Yet when the tournament started, the list of challengers became much smaller. Hosting a PGA TOUR event for the first time, the course – built by Tom Kite and Bob Cupp three years earlier on a toxic landfill – received mixed reviews at best. Among the criticisms: the sight lines were awkward; the landing areas were too tight; the slopes were too severe; the rough, at 4 inches, was too long. Woods simply called it “interesting.â€� Back then, of course, course set-up and conditions didn’t matter to Tiger. He could win on a goat track. As for those of lesser talent, some seemed to immediately mentally check out due to their dislike of Liberty National. Others, such as Harrington and Els, embraced the course. “Players were not happy, but I really liked it,â€� recalled Els, who compared to course to some of the links venues in his native South Africa. Slocum liked it too. “I’ve always believed in myself and my ability,â€� he said. “A lot of times, it has to do with a golf course that can fit someone who hits it like me. That week was just one of those great weeks, where I think it was 11 or 12 something under par and you could get it around a course like that.â€� On Thursday, he birdied his final four holes for a 5-under 66. Friday was more difficult. He and Matteson were in an afternoon twosome that played behind threesomes, so the pace was frustratingly slow. Meanwhile, the weather worsened during the day. Slocum finished bogey/double bogey to shoot 72. Still, he was tied for fourth through 36 holes, higher on the leaderboard than the four eventual runners-up. That changed on Saturday. Stricker’s 68 left him at 6 under, one stroke ahead of Slocum. Woods and Harrington were 4 under. Els – who had climbed back from a horrendous start on Thursday when he was 4 over after four holes — was now at 3 under. They would all chase 54-hole co-leaders Paul Goydos and Steve Marino at 9 under. Woods was asked how close he needed to be to stay within striking distance. “Seven [strokes] or less,â€� he replied. As it turned out, the leaders were not the problem. Goydos shot 75 in the final round; Marino’s 77 was the highest score of the day. The door was open. Four of the game’s biggest names stepped up. So did the FedExCup’s version of Cinderella. SUPERSTARS GALORE AS SLOCUM LURKS A playoff involving Ernie Els and Tiger Woods would’ve been the latest chapter in a fascinating duel that had already existed for more than a decade. At the 1998 Johnnie Walker Classic in Thailand, Els got his first look at Playoff Tiger. Els had led the tournament from Day One, leaving Tiger eight shots behind entering the final round. But Tiger roared back, and Els had to make a 14-foot birdie putt on the last hole just to force a playoff. Tiger then won on the second hole. Two years later, they met for the first time in a PGA TOUR playoff, at the then-Mercedes Championship. Tiger won again. They would meet for a second time on the European Tour in 2006 at the Dubai Desert Classic – again, with Tiger winning. Of course, their most famous playoff came on the final day of the 2003 Presidents Cup in Els’ home country of South Africa. With the U.S. and International Teams tied after regulation, Woods and Els were tabbed by their respective captains (Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player) to battle it out. They played three holes, neither giving an inch. With darkness falling, the playoff was halted and the Presidents Cup shared in the spirit of sportsmanship. Els would’ve welcomed another chance to face the most intimidating player in golf. “It’s always been an absolute pleasure to play with him,â€� Els said. “I always learned something from him. I think it was vice-versa a little bit. He liked to play with me – and he liked to kick the hell out of me. I think he picked some stuff out of my game like I did with his. I was always in awe when he was playing. He was a very, very special player.â€� Harrington also had playoff experience against Woods — and with some success. In the 2006 Dunlop Phoenix Open in Japan, the Irishman denied Tiger a third straight tournament title by winning on the second playoff hole. Harrington also had Ryder Cup success against Woods; he and Colin Montgomerie had teamed up to beat the infamous pairing of Woods and Phil Mickelson in 2004. Woods, of course, also had his share of Presidents Cup matches against Els. And in one event, Woods and Els were even on the same side – at the 2003 Battle of the Bridges. The duo lost to Mickelson and Sergio Garcia in that made-for-TV event. Ultimately, those three – Woods, Els and Harrington, a combined 20 majors and more than 150 worldwide wins – would need help to face each other in a playoff. It nearly happened. ‘DO NOT LEAVE IT SHORT’ Els was the first to finish. He shot a bogey-free 66 to post the number to beat: 8 under. He didn’t think it would hold. He put his bags in the trunk of his car and changed out of his golf shoes. Harrington finished a half-hour later after charging up the leaderboard with four birdies in his final eight holes. “I wasn’t really in the tournament until the end,â€� he recalled. He was also at 8 under. He stuck around just in case. Woods was in the next group to finish. He stepped onto the 18th green at 8 under and had a 7-foot birdie putt to gain a share of the lead with Slocum and Stricker. Fait accompli, right? Woods never misses a putt in this situation, right? A gasp – well, more like a groan — rolled through the gallery when he failed to convert. Perhaps it was a carryover from the PGA two weeks earlier, when Tiger missed key putts from a similar distance down the stretch in losing to Yang. Woods acknowledged his mistake on the “trickyâ€� greens at Liberty National. “We misread it by almost a cup,â€� he said. “That’s frustrating when you misread a putt that bad.â€� Slocum and Stricker, playing partners on the final day, were 200 yards away, preparing to hit their second shots at 18. Slocum thought Tiger’s putt was from a much longer distance. “It looked like an 18-footer until I saw the replay,â€� he recalled. “I said, ‘Oh my gosh. How lucky.’ He just doesn’t miss many of those.â€� The tournament was now in the hands of Slocum and Stricker, but they were in scramble mode. Each teed off at the 18th at 9 under – and each had found the fairway bunker, Stricker on the left side, Slocum on the right. Par was no longer a given. Els pulled his clubs out of his trunk, changed his shoes and headed to the range to warm up. Harrington was already there. Both bunker shots caught a small piece of the lip and failed to reach the green. Stricker then followed with a wedge shot to 10 feet. Slocum hit his wedge shot to 20 feet. Both needed to make their putts to save par and force a two-man playoff. If both missed, it would be a five-man battle. Slocum liked his line and his confidence. “I was rolling it really well all week,â€� he said. “All I told myself was do not leave it short.â€� It was the most important putt of his career. When it dropped, Woods, Harrington and Els were eliminated. “I don’t think anybody was expecting him to make that putt at the last,â€� recalled Harrington. “We were all getting our heads around going out there in a playoff, was looking forward to it. But he did the business.â€� Now all the pressure was on Stricker, one of the finest putters of his generation. But he could not convert. It’s been nine years, but that bogey at Liberty National has not disappeared. “That’s what sticks in my mind – having the opportunity to win there against a good field,â€� Stricker said. “Just how making bogey stings a little bit.â€� Els packed his clubs away for the second time. Another close call, but he couldn’t help feeling happy for the lesser-known winner who had taken down four of golf’s biggest names. “We’ve seen it happy many times,â€� Els said. “Seen it happen with Larry Mize beating Seve [Ballesteros] and Greg Norman [in the 1987 Masters]. Fuzzy Zoeller beating Tom Watson, who was the best player in the world then [at the ’79 Masters]. I remember in 1994, I was nowhere and I beat Greg Norman, who was the No. 1 player in the world, in Dubai. So these things happen. “When you lose, of course you feel a little disappointed. But in golf, we’re always happy for the guy who wins because there’s always a story behind it.â€� In this case, the ramifications were significant. CINDERELLA STORY BECOMES TRUE STORY With the win, Slocum immediately became the new poster boy for the FedExCup, which at that point was in its third year. He moved from 124th to third in the standings – the jump of 121 spots remains the biggest in Playoffs history. It showed the true essence of the Playoffs — any of its 125 competitors can make a legitimate run at the big prize. “That’s the beauty of what they were trying to do,â€� Slocum said of the TOUR’s introduction of its post-season format. “Maybe not quite to that extreme – they made a little bit of an adjustment [Playoff wins are now worth 2,000 points, not 2,500 as in 2009]. But at the time, if they were going to put emphasis on the Playoffs, that’s what could happen. “It showed you what you could do if you just get into the top 125 and get hot.â€� Slocum ultimately would finish eighth in the final FedExCup standings that year. Woods won his second FedExCup title thanks to his win at the BMW Championship and a runner-up finish to Mickelson at the TOUR Championship. Els, Harrington and Stricker also finished inside the top 10 that week at East Lake. Meanwhile, the idea of a dominant U.S. duo had been generated at Liberty National. The first time Woods and Stricker were grouped at a PGA TOUR event was in 1997 at the AT&T Pebble Beach. They didn’t play again for another 10 years until the inaugural FedExCup Playoffs, which groups players in the first two rounds by their FedExCup status. It took another two years for the two to be paired again – at Liberty National. Looming on the horizon was the 2009 Presidents Cup in San Francisco. Somewhere during those first two rounds, with the Statue of Liberty prodding their national pride, Woods and Stricker discussed the possibility of a partnership. Their talks continued throughout the Playoffs, as they were paired at all four events for a total of seven rounds. Ultimately, it was an easy decision for U.S. Captain Fred Couples – and a very wise move. The Woods-Stricker Presidents Cup duo was unbeatable at TPC Harding Park, winning by scores of 6&4, 5&3, 4&2 and then the only close call, a 1-up victory over Tim Clark and Mike Weir. The Americans eventually beat the Internationals by five points. Last fall, Woods, Els and Stricker were again at Liberty National, although neither in a playing capacity. Stricker was the U.S. Captain for the Presidents Cup; Woods was one of his assistants. Els was an assistant on the International side. A few months later, Woods and Els were named captains for their respective sides at the 2019 Presidents Cup in Australia. Their duel continues. As for Slocum, the Cinderella story was not sustainable. He did win another TOUR event in 2010, but since then the ride has been bumpy. Four years ago, he suffered a flare-up of his ulcerative colitis – which was first diagnosed after his college career and sidelined him for two years. Slocum tried to play through the pain but was not competitive. “Looking back, I wish I would’ve stopped, taken a medical, got my health back and then tried,â€� said Slocum, a long-time spokesman for the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America. “But pride got in the way.â€� After losing his TOUR card, he finally took some time off. He now enjoys seeing his daughters growing up, and he’s also is involved in Biomech, a company offering putters and putting aids, including a sensor for in-depth analysis. “Keeps me busy,â€� he said. But the itch has returned. He wants to play competitive golf again and his health is back. Playing opportunities are difficult to come by, though – the Barracuda appearance was just his third start of the year. He made the cut and finished T-71. “I’m 44. I’ve still got years left,â€� Slocum said. “I’ve got a young body. My game is good. It’s still rusty right now, but I’m working my way back into form.â€� Slocum’s boyish looks are now hidden slightly by his facial hair, but the gleam in his eye remains. It’s been nine years since Cinderella danced in the FedExCup Playoffs. Perhaps one day, he’ll get another chance to wear the glass golf shoe.

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First off, they’re books, not e-books, audio books, comic books, green-reading books or yardage books. Pulp. Paper. Binding. “Books,â€� Rory McIlroy says. “I have some on my phone and e-books just as references, and you can highlight stuff, but I take it in more when I’m holding the book and get to turn the pages.â€� Yes, dear reader, your defending champion of THE PLAYERS Championship is himself a reader. McIlroy and his wife, Erica, keep a small library at their home in South Florida, and while some of the books there are purely decorative, others are a lot more than that. “Erica is more into lifestyle stuff,â€� McIlroy says, “maybe not as much self-help type things, where I definitely went down this path of how the mind works and how to approach things.â€� Given the fact that he is coming off a season in which he won THE PLAYERS, RBC Canadian Open, TOUR Championship and the FedExCup and Player of the Year, and this season has already seen him add another victory (World Golf Championship-HSBC Champions) and return to world No. 1, you’d have to say that path has been the right one for McIlroy. Groucho Marx said, “Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.â€� But can reading make you a better golfer? Anecdotally, the answer is yes. Every winner of THE PLAYERS can point to several critical factors. Driving. Iron play. Putting. But McIlroy did more than just crush the field in Strokes Gained: Tee to Green and par-3 scoring last year. He crushed books. He read. It was simple, but profound. “I spend enough time around a lot of impressive people, and one of the common denominators, always, is they read a lot,â€� McIlroy says. “Readers are usually successful people and great people to be around. I had read before, but it had always been biographies and fictional stuff. Over the last couple of years, I’ve gotten more into the psychology or self-help or that sort of stuff.â€� Ballast for the brain Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it. – P.J. O’Rourke To get an idea of what books mean to McIlroy, consider the fourth hole in last year’s final round. It was a cloudy 59 degrees and nearing 2:30 p.m. ET. He was crushing the driver – he would trail only Tommy Fleetwood in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee – and liked the course better in March than in May, as he could see it better from the tees. TPC Sawgrass had over-seeded and thus created sharper definition between fairways (lighter) and rough (darker). The fourth is not hard if you hit the fairway, but from the right fairway bunker or the rough, it can be tricky to hit the green, which is guarded by a moat. One stroke behind Jon Rahm entering Sunday, McIlroy had already worked his way into the lead but found the right rough off the tee. Now, with a wedge, he swung and watched in horror as his ball came out left and soft. Splash. It was cold; even though sunrise had been at 7:33 a.m., he had not had much chance to show off the green St. Patrick’s Day shirt under his blue pullover. Jason Day waited as he took a drop. There were a lot of places McIlroy’s mind could have gone. Having been in contention but not won in his previous five TOUR starts, all top-six finishes, he could have thought, Here we go again. “He can’t close, he can’t play on Sundays,â€� McIlroy said later, describing the noise that had seeped up from the muck. “Blah, blah, blah.â€� Here was a player who could do no wrong as he won the 2011 U.S. Open, 2012 PGA Championship, and 2014 Open Championship and PGA, but now he apparently could do no right. Here we go again? Yeah, McIlroy could have gone there. Reading, though, had steeled him. Avoid the big reaction. That’s one of the tenets of one of McIlroy’s favorite authors, Ryan Holiday, who espouses the stoicism of figures like Marcus Aurelius in “The Obstacle is the Wayâ€� and “The Ego is the Enemy.â€�    “Not giving in to your emotions,â€� says McIlroy, who in the last year has befriended the author. (They trade the occasional email.) “Not being impulsive, being a little bit more rational, taking a step back to think about things logically. That’s what has helped me. “I mean, if you go back to THE PLAYERS,â€� he adds, “I went from leading or tied for the lead to a couple behind, but I didn’t impulsively go and chase some birdies. I was like, OK, this is fine, we’ve got a lot of holes left. There’s a lot that can happen, stay patient, and show poise, and all the P words that I like to use. All of that comes from reading and a little bit of inward reflection and figuring out what I need to do to get the best out of myself.â€� In the end, McIlroy recovered to win the TOUR’s signature event. On a wild day in which a half-dozen people had a share of the lead, he accepted his double and turned in 1 over, then made four back-nine birdies to post a 2-under 70 and win by a shot over Jim Furyk. His best shot, he said later, was the 6-iron he hit out of the fairway bunker at the par-4 15th, his ball stopping 14 feet from the pin before he made the putt. His most important shot, though, might have been his gaffe at the fourth, the fulcrum on which his week and perhaps his entire season could have swung one way or the other. Looking beyond accomplishments    If you don’t like to read, you haven’t found the right book. – J.K. Rowling “Tiger reads a lot,â€� says McIlroy, who also has read popular novelists like J.K. Rowling and Dan Brown. “But he reads a lot of, like, the medical journal and studies that have been published and stuff like this. He’s a big reader, but I don’t know if he’s a big reader of books, per se.â€� Lucas Glover is a reader. He went through a large chunk of the Jack Reacher series by Lee Child, and is now onto “The Body,â€� by Bill Bryson. Sometimes, Glover talks books with Peter Malnati, also a reader. David Duval had a bookish side even in his prime. The written word is alive and well. Asked at the Masters last year to name the best book he’d read in the previous 12 months, McIlroy was surprisingly expansive. “The Greatest Salesman in the World, by Og Mandino, that’s one that I sort of refer back to every now and again,â€� replied McIlroy. “Either of the Ryan Holiday books are pretty good, The Obstacle is the Way or Ego is the Enemy. Just started on Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson, so getting into that. There’s four.â€� He later mentioned a fifth, “Digital Minimalismâ€� by Cal Newport. McIlroy, who has deleted several apps from his phone, wonders what all of our screens are doing to us and tries to go low-to-no-tech during tournament weeks, preferring jigsaw puzzles and, yes, books. But why? It’s not that McIlroy, an only child, staved off loneliness with his books. Nor was he ever obsessed with academia. “It was never my forte,â€� he said in a lengthy interview with the Irish Independent. “I was good enough to get by, but I never excelled.â€�  It’s more accurate to say he was seeking ballast amid the pitching and yawing of life as a public figure. Was he a good person because he was winning golf tournaments? Was he a bad one when he wasn’t? Even amid his dazzling early success, he felt slightly unmoored. “One thing I used to do in the past is let what I shot that day influence who I was or my mood,â€� McIlroy said last season, when he also led the TOUR with 14 top-10 finishes and won the Byron Nelson Award for adjusted scoring average (69.057). “It’s something I worked hard on because who I am as a person isn’t who I am as a golfer.â€� In other words, at 30 he has become acutely aware of the perils of accomplishment. Regarding the Jobs biography, McIlroy was struck by the Apple major domo’s failures and comebacks and achievements, but also by the rare glimpses into Jobs’ humanity. “It seems like he was a pretty hard guy to like at the start, and I think that’s why I found the book so slow-going,â€� he says now. “I was like, I don’t know if I like this guy. And then as it goes on and he gets sick and starts to appreciate his family more, you get a sense that he’s turned the corner a bit, and there are things he values maybe more than just trying to create another cool product.â€� When not caring is good If you are going to get anywhere in life, you have to read a lot of books. – Roald Dahl At the Ryder Cup in France in 2018, McIlroy came upon another favorite author: Mark Manson, author of “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F—: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life,â€� followed by “Everything is F—–: A Book About Hope.â€� As the titles suggest (we’ve, ahem, slightly altered them), his books are equal parts profound and profane. They’re also very funny. “(European Captain) Thomas Bjorn’s partner, Grace, gave Mark Manson’s (Subtle Art) book to all the wives,â€� McIlroy says. “… My wife read it before I did and gave it to me and said, ‘I think you should read this. It’s really good.’ It’s an important book to me.â€� The title was part of the initial appeal, and that’s because, McIlroy admits, “Sometimes I care too much about too many things.â€� But there’s more to it than that. In “The Subtle Art,â€� Manson writes about humankind’s misery amid a long list of advances (from the Internet to eradication of disease) that one might have thought would have made us happier. One culprit: the idea that we can have it all, and everyone can be a superstar. The key to a good life, he writes, is caring about “only what is true and immediate and important,â€� and not getting caught in what philosopher Alan Watts called “the backwards law,â€� the trap of pursuing feeling better/richer/thinner only to reinforce a feeling of dissatisfaction. “The desire for more positive experience is itself a negative experience,â€� Manson writes. “And, paradoxically, the acceptance of one’s negative experience is itself a positive experience.â€� Perhaps this is what McIlroy was thinking of when he told Ewen Murray of The Guardian that the last step for him was mindset, i.e., “when you are in contention, not giving a s*&% if you win or not.â€� In other words, a sports psychologist might say, it’s important to just let it happen. “He talks about how everyone wants to get smarter, more attractive, richer,â€� McIlroy says of Manson, “and they’re not going deep enough to ask, ‘Why do I want these things? What’s wrong with who I am right now?’ It’s people thinking that all these things will make them happier at the end of the day. With this book, it’s getting happiness from the simple things in life. “For instance,â€� he adds, “I get to go grocery shopping on the Monday when I get home from a tournament, and that to me is fun. That’s very mundane for most people, but for me it’s a little perk for having a week off, going to Whole Foods and doing the grocery shopping.â€� Some of the rules in the books McIlroy reads can be contradictory. While Holiday preaches stoicism, Manson points out in “Everything is F—–â€� that it’s impossible to completely remove emotion, lest one turn into a potato. McIlroy may have been wrestling with this paradox last summer. Having decided to treat every round the same, he lost a head-to-head battle with then-No. 1 Brooks Koepka at the World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational. (Koepka shot 65 to win, McIlroy 71 to finish T4.) When they met four weeks later in the final round of the TOUR Championship, McIlroy vowed not to treat the final round as just another day. He would give it special reverence. It worked out nicely as he shot 66 to win, while Koepka slumped to a 72 for a T3 finish. The lesson: Emotion is bad, except when it’s good. When it was over, McIlroy tried to accept his victory the way Holiday would, the way Marcus Aurelius would: without arrogance, just as he should let his setbacks go with indifference. Rory would still be just Rory to the organic apples and the rest of it at Whole Foods, and to his wife, and their library of books at home. All awaited his return as conquering hero or not. For Rory McIlroy – golfer, reader, citizen of the world – it was on to the next chapter.

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