Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, and Jordan Spieth have a combined 22 major championships between them. At the PGA Championship, they’ll begin a quest for another together
The golf world will stop at 9:11 am ET on Thursday. Three of the game’s biggest stars — each with something to prove to themselves — will step to the tee at Southern Hills in Tulsa to begin the 104th PGA Championship, and for that moment nothing else will matter.
Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, and Jordan Spieth are grouped together for the first two rounds, a marquee group that will even overshadow the pairing of the top-three players on the world ranking later in the day. The three of them are different players, with different styles, strengths, and recent form. But once all the preparation stops and the PGA Championship begins, they will all have the same motivation: lift the Wanamaker Trophy and show that they can still do it.
For Woods, he’s already achieved something he and the rest of the golf world feared he would never be able to again. When images of Woods’ wrecked SUV flashed across television screens across the world and news came out that his right leg was shattered and nearly had to be amputated, the quest to surpass Jack Nicklaus’ major championship record no longer mattered. He just needed to be able to walk again, to be able to play with his kids again. A return to the PGA Tour was insignificant in the bigger picture, perhaps even unlikely.
But, after months of long, arduous rehab, he did it last month at the Masters, walking the slopes of Augusta National for four days. It was hard and his leg still hurt, but a man who once won a major with a broken leg pulled through.
Now he’ll try to do it again at Southern Hills. This time, though, is different. He now knows he can get around a golf course; any walk will be easier than Augusta. It wasn’t his strength that let him down that week but his putting, as he three-putted six times in the last two rounds and finished 50th out of 52 players in putting.
Expect a stronger, more confident Woods this week. His ball speed is back up above 180 mph; the tour average is around 170. How much better will he get? Even he’s not sure.
“I don’t know. There’s going to be limitations. There’s a lot of hardware in there and there’s going to be limitations to what I’m going to be able to do, but I’m going to get stronger,” Woods said on Tuesday. “I don’t know how much that is or how much range of motion I’ll ever get back. But sure is a hell of a lot better than it was 12 months ago.”
Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth are poised to end long droughts in the majors at 2022 PGA Championship
For McIlroy, he’s had one word slung around his neck for nearly eight years: slump. Someone who won four majors by the age of 25, two of them by eight shots, now hasn’t won one since 2014. He’s still had success: McIlroy has 11 PGA Tour wins since his last major, including two World Golf Championships and two FedEx Cup titles. He’s earned more than $40 million on the course since then. Most players would love to be in that kind of “slump.”
But McIlroy knows reputations are made in the majors, and the long drought is an albatross he’s trying to get rid of. His problem has been how he starts. In his last 11 majors, McIlroy has broken 70 just twice in the first round and has a scoring average of 72. He’s shot in the 60s five times on Sunday, with a scoring average just above 70.
McIlroy has 14 top-10s in majors since his last win, including a runner-up finish at the Masters last month. He knows that he needs to start better and that it will take a change in mindset to do it.
“I think over the past few years, the things that have stopped me from getting in contention or being able to win these majors is big numbers and shooting myself out of it sort of early,” he said.
“I think the most consistent way to get yourself to be able to have chances to win these major championships is to sort of adopt that conservative strategy. Tiger did it most of his career…letting other guys make the mistakes. Pars are pretty good in major championships, and that’s sort of the philosophy that I believe in going forward.”
McIlroy is still capable of flashes of brilliance that make his eight-year drought all the more puzzling. At the Masters, he closed his blistering 64 on Sunday with a hole-out birdie on the 18th hole. In his last start, the Wells Fargo Championship, he made the cut on the number before playing his way back in contention, having a chance to win before finishing in fifth place. For a course like Southern Hills that requires precision, McIlroy is confident and swinging freely. He finished second at Augusta in Greens in Regulation and led the field at Wells Fargo.
At least McIlroy and Woods played the weekend at the Masters. Spieth seemed lost with his game at Augusta, going through an unseemly pre-shot routine and not quite knowing where the ball was going. He missed the cut for the first time in his career, the player who won here as a 21-year-old a distant memory.
Then he won the RBC Heritage the next week. He finished a shot behind at the AT&T Byron Nelson last week. Spieth comes to the PGA Championship, the only major he’s missing for the career Grand Slam, as hot as anybody. Southern Hills demands creative genius, and that’s where Spieth is at his best.
Beginning on Thursday, the three of them will have a chance to study each other. They each think they can win. “I feel like I can, definitely,” Woods said. “I just have to go out there and do it. I have to do my work. Starts on Thursday and I’ll be ready.”
So will the rest of the golf world.
For more from The PGA Tour, make sure to follow FanSided and stay tuned to our golf hub for all the latest news and results.
