Rory McIlroy

Ponte Vedera Beach, Florida – Rory McIlroy’s week at the Player Championship starts with the apprentice and ends heroically. McIlroy won his second professional title Monday morning after defeating JJ Spaun in three-hole total playoffs under the huge conditions of TPC Sawgrass.

It was a week that illuminated the reason McIlroy was so compelling in the course and magnetic.

McIlroy walked to the ropes and grabbed one of Potter’s teammates after a dig of his 2011 Masters collapse in practice Tuesday. College players were evacuated.

This is McIlroy’s human reaction. As my colleague James Colgan pointed out, this is also a person to reveal. It shows the duality of the four major winners. The unpredictability of the contrasting version he chose to exhibit.

He was both willing and vulnerable enough to show emotional pain of failure, but he also knew that he could not let those who were disappointed define him.

McIlroy’s week at TPC Sawgrass, hitting a 72-hole victory on Monday after his Sunday surge, all of which has to do with that effort.

McIlroy said Wednesday that he plans to retire “some of the remaining tanks” and that he will not be in the PGA Tour championship. In the next breath, there is always the possibility that he will change his mind. The willingness to develop your position based on new information is admirable and a sign of deep introspective ability.

The same is true for his course method.

McIlroy can beat almost any test, but he is struggling to fight his natural aggressive instincts in an attempt to reflect what has made Scottie Scheffler so dominant in the past two years.

This shift in mindset helped McIlroy win AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am earlier this year and put him into the final round of TPC Sawgrass, within the distance of another player’s title. Despite starting four shots by 54-hole leader JJ Spaun, McIlroy is expected to track his contenders ahead of him with an average world ranking of 103. Anything else would be disappointing.

The great curse is that the expectations that follow will only lead to failure being exponentially amplified. McIlroy knows this very well as his main champion Drought enters its 11th year.

So McIlroy arrived at TPC Sawgrass Sunday and took the tempered look of a player who knew what he should do, but also learned that achieving that won’t quiet your problem.

He made the birdie hit his second shot on 5 2-10 feet in the first place, resulting in a hawk. His 3-3 starts reducing the lead from a quarter of the 30-minute period to one.

Then there is a four-hole stretch that slips between two McCross.

After he drove 6 cars to find the right pine straw, McIlroy needed to hit a shot, which required about 40 feet of left to right to avoid the trees and give himself a birdie look. He faded into the Florida sky, putting his pin 25 feet to the right and making it par.

On the next hole, with a 4-7 stroke, McIlroy found himself in the middle of the fairway, with a green light for hunting. But he hung the bunker left and right shots, which led to a hasty bogey. McIlroy turned around and stuffed it 14 feet in the third eight, only in the second bird of the day, in that hole. On 599, McIlroy hit the second shot on the green, failing to hit the birdie up and down.

It’s a rare war between shots, and it seems only McIlroy can achieve, and frustrating mistakes are usually to define his biggest failure.

After a four-hour weather shutdown on Sunday, McIlroy came out and shot from a distance of 12 to 14 feet. He rolled in the birdie and his lead suddenly three points. The Golf Championship feels over in his last nine games that have been torn recently. The last six holes are just a thrill of McIlroy’s history.

But he scored the final six holes, including the missing seven-year-old, 11-foot birdie look, allowing Spaun to catch him and force Monday’s playoffs.

“There’s a little bit of both,” McIlroy said after Sunday’s round. He was proud or disappointed in the round when he started Sunday, given where he started the day. “I’m glad to be in my position, but I also feel like I’ve had a chance to close the door on the back nine and I’m not doing that. A little bit of both.”

Monday’s three-hole playoff lacked drama. McIlroy hit a 336-yard drive in a 16-par 5-seater, relaxing birdie when Spaun made a taboo. Five minutes later, McIlroy hit a crisp half-nine to 29 feet, green on the island at the age of 17. McIlroy’s second player title was almost sealed when Spaun hit his tee on the green and went into the water. Despite having three bogeys at 17 and launching a Tee at 18, McIlroy easily shuts down the Spaun.

He was able to win at TPC Sawgrass while hitting less than 50% of the fairways, indicating that McIlroy became a more “complete” player (his words). Now he is able to win differently on different tracks and no longer rely on areas where he works with his drivers.

Monday is another achievement suitable for a Hall of Fame career.

“I think the only multiple major champions and multiple player champions are [Jack Nicklaus],,,,, [Tiger Woods],,,,, [Scottie Scheffler] And myself, so it’s a really nice group,” McIlroy said Monday.

But then McIlroy’s duality raised his head for the last time.

McIlroy is still enjoying the golden aura of his recent victory, but McIlroy’s recent heartbrokenness at the 2024 U.S. Open and other championships has helped him build scar tissue and prepare him to stop repeating history. It took him a little while, as if the tweet from the 18th hole was still hanging in the sawgrass air.

He discussed what he did during the offseason after the Scottish Open and Wentworth’s Pinehurst shortage.

“It feels like I’ve made these mistakes in critical times like I used to,” McIlroy said. “I think a big part of it is just learning from these mistakes. It’s a long career. You have to keep incredible patience. Yes, I’m going to say that some of these losses helped me learn what to do when I’m in these positions again.”

Like McIlroy, the celebration of achievements quickly disappeared and was replaced by unanswered questions, how he would handle what was waiting for him.