Rory McIlroy wins Wells Fargo Championship by seven shots, smashes tournament record

By Rex Hoggard

CHARLOTTE, North Carolina  – You know how American Pharoah (a racehorse) lapped the field on Saturday at the Preakness by seven lengths? Yeah, this was better than that.
While Rory McIlroy wasn’t vying for the second leg of the Triple Crown – or even the fourth leg of the career Grand Slam, that will have to wait until next April – his seven-stroke masterpiece was still an ominous work of art.
With apologies to American Pharoah, the 3-year-old colt only had to navigate a sloppy Pimlico track for his title; whereas McIlroy had to weather four trips through Quail Hollow Club’s demanding “Green Mile,” which the world No. 1 played in 1 over for the week.
But that doesn’t scratch the surface of McIlroy’s performance at Quail Hollow.
His Saturday 61 was a course record, breaking the old mark he set when he won here in 2010, and he etched 54- and 72-hole scoring records, shattering the latter by six strokes.
It was, by any measure, a signature performance somewhere just south of those eight-stroke romps at the 2011 U.S. Open and 2012 PGA Championship.
Not that the Northern Irishman was exactly caught up in the hyperbole following a closing-round 69 that was, by McIlroy’s own assessment, good enough.

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“Sort of boring, really,” he said of his 11th US PGA Tour victory. “In terms of there wasn’t as much excitement on the back nine. I finished with six 3s the last time I won here. Would have been nice to finish with six 3s again.”
It’s always more with this kid.
But what this victory lacked in fireworks it made up for in foreshadowing, with McIlroy comparing his current run, which includes May victories at the WGC-Cadillac Match Play and now the Wells Fargo Championship, to his late-summer tear in 2014 when he won bookend majors (Open Championship and PGA Championship) around a World Golf Championships high card (Bridgestone Invitational).
For others, it was more akin to his US PGA title walk-over in 2012 at Kiawah Island where he overpowered the course and all takers.
“He just has that killer instinct. He wants it so badly,” said David Feherty, the CBS Sports on-course reporter who walked with McIlroy in ’12 at the PGA and on Sunday at Quail Hollow. “There weren’t two of those on Noah’s Ark, I can tell you that much.”
There was a time when some openly asked if McIlroy was mean enough to win events with such cut-throat efficiency, a time when his periodic competitive lapses (see PGA Tour season, 2013) were grounds to question any comparisons to Tiger Woods.
But with each passing milestone those excuses begin looking thinner than Quail Hollow’s parched fairways.
In the last three weeks, McIlroy has played 265 competitive holes on Tour with progressively better results.
Although he said on Sunday it’s his complete game that makes performances like this week possible, what separates him from the pack on these occasions is an utter fearlessness off the tee. For the week, he had 42 drives of 300 yards or more and yet still batted well over .500 (31 of 56) in fairways hit.
There were cracks on Sunday, most notably a three-putt bogey from 56 feet at the second hole which was his first three-putt in 167 holes on Tour, and as he stepped to the 16th tee to begin the “Green Mile” he took a mental note that he was just four strokes clear of Patrick Rodgers at the time.
But a 364-yard drive and tap-in birdie at No. 16 quickly robbed the landscape of whatever drama was remaining.
Beginning the day, McIlroy’s plan was simple – birdie the four par 5s and two “reachable” par 4s. Six birdies, he reasoned, would be hard to beat considering the field had already spotted him a four-stroke advantage heading into the final turn.
But then simple is what an older, wiser McIlroy seems to do best. Like last year at Hoylake, when his trigger words for the week were “process” and “spot.”
This week it was an 11th-hour meeting with putting coach Dave Stockton Sr., who spent all of three minutes working with McIlroy on Wednesday. This time the message was stay down and with the putt through impact.
“Rory likes to keep things simple, like last year at the Open Championship, and that’s what we did,” said Stockton Sr., who reconnected with McIlroy after a 13-month hiatus.
Perhaps most impressive of all, however, is how much the 26-year-old relishes his status atop the pack.
Following his WGC-Match Play victory he acknowledged that he checks the Official World Golf Ranking to see his lead every Monday. High-profile victories in recent weeks by Jordan Spieth (Masters) and Rickie Fowler (The Players) have only intensified McIlroy’s desire to dominate.
“It does push me. I think you see guys that you knew well, guys that are your peers and they’re winning golf tournaments, big golf tournaments, that you want to win,” McIlroy said. “I felt like as the best player in the world I want to go at it every week and just show that.”
Whether by seven lengths or seven strokes, McIlroy’s play this week was more than just a single victory, it’s a sign of what’s becoming the norm for golf’s fiercest racehorse.

FINAL TOTALS

1	Rory McIlroy	70	67	61	69				267
T2	Patrick Rodgers	68	68	70	68				274
T2	Webb Simpson	67	67	68	72				274
T4	Gary Woodland	70	71	68	67				276
T4	Phil Mickelson	71	66	71	68				276
T4	Robert Streb	65	69	71	71				276
T7	Geoff Ogilvy	69	69	71	68				277
T7	Justin Thomas	69	73	65	70				277
T9	Kevin Streelman	69	71	70	68				278
T9	Shawn Stefani	69	70	70	69				278
T9	Jason Bohn	72	68	69	69				278
T9	Brendan Steele	69	69	68	72				278
T13	Danny Lee	71	69	69	70				279
T13	Scott Brown	71	68	69	71				279
T13	Jim Herman	71	69	68	71				279
T16	Kevin Chappell	66	73	74	67				280
T16	Tony Finau	73	67	70	70				280
T16	Boo Weekley	71	70	67	72				280
19	Carlos Ortiz	70	71	66	74				281
T20	Chesson Hadley	67	77	70	68				282
T20	Jonathan Randolph	70	71	71	70				282
T20	Pat Perez	73	71	68	70				282
T20	Stewart Cink	67	76	68	71				282
T20	John Peterson	71	70	70	71				282
T20	Hideki Matsuyama	69	71	70	72				282
T20	Sean O'Hair	74	69	67	72				282
T20	Will MacKenzie	69	68	70	75				282
T28	William McGirt	72	70	74	67				283
T28	Morgan Hoffmann	72	70	72	69				283
T28	George McNeill	69	69	75	70				283
T28	Steve Alker	69	72	72	70				283
T28	Ricky Barnes	67	73	72	71				283
T28	Michael Thompson	67	71	73	72				283
T28	Lucas Glover	71	72	68	72				283
T28	Matt Jones	69	70	70	74				283
T28	Daniel Berger	71	68	70	74				283
T28	K.J. Choi	68	72	69	74				283
T38	Billy Hurley III	67	75	73	69				284
T38	Charles Howell III	75	69	71	69				284
T38	Steve Wheatcroft	74	66	74	70				284
T38	Brian Stuard	70	70	73	71				284
T38	Kevin Kisner	69	73	71	71				284
T38	Mark Wilson	71	71	71	71				284
T38	Ben Martin	74	69	70	71				284
T38	John Merrick	71	70	71	72				284
T38	Retief Goosen	72	70	67	75				284
T47	Steven Bowditch	73	71	72	69				285
T47	Ryan Moore	71	71	73	70				285
T47	Hunter Mahan	70	73	72	70				285
T47	Bo Van Pelt	70	71	72	72				285
T47	Sam Saunders	75	68	70	72				285
T47	Martin Flores	69	67	76	73				285
T47	Carl Pettersson	68	72	72	73				285
T47	Scott Pinckney	76	68	66	75				285
T55	Martin Laird	72	70	73	71				286
T55	Aaron Baddeley	74	70	70	72				286
T55	Jason Gore	70	71	72	73				286
T58	Andres Gonzales	72	71	73	71				287
T58	Henrik Stenson	72	71	73	71				287
T58	Alex Cejka	71	70	74	72				287
T58	Russell Knox	69	69	77	72				287
T58	Sang-Moon Bae	70	72	73	72				287
T58	Michael Putnam	70	73	72	72				287
T58	Carlos Sainz Jr.	74	69	72	72				287
T58	Patrick Reed	66	74	72	75				287
T66	Colt Knost	75	68	73	72				288
T66	Scott Gutschewski	69	70	75	74				288
T68	Chad Collins	72	70	73	74				289
T68	Bill Haas	72	70	71	76				289
T68	Chad Campbell	71	69	68	81				289
71	Andres Romero	70	73	73	75				291
72	David Toms	72	70	73	77				292
73	James Hahn	73	71	72	77				293
T74	Blake Adams	73	71	73	MDF				217
T74	Jim Renner	72	71	74	MDF				217