As Rory McIlroy closes on a sixth Race to Dubai title and third in as many years, former Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley reflects on another consistent year and what the Northern Irishman needs to do to be considered Europe’s all-time great…
It has been an excellent year for Rory McIlroy, with only Xander Schauffele and Scottie Scheffler having outstanding years and earning more world ranking points than he has in the last 12 months.
That’s a phenomenal return and he has won three times this year, but the thing that’s eluded him is the major championships and the fact it’s now 10 years since he has won one definitely hurts. When you reach the level that he has done over the past decade, that’s what you’re judged by.
He was one putt away or one good shot away from winning that US Open in June and then we’d be having a very different conversation about his year, but instead we’re looking at it now as a kind of B-plus or a seven-out-of-10 year compared to a nine-out-of-10 one.
The weight and burden of expectation he gets externally from all of us in the media and the crowd is a lot for him, with everybody asking questions about when is he going to win majors, but I think the biggest burden is carried by him.
He knows the quality of player he is, how dominant he’s been on the PGA Tour and how his win ratio is up there with almost anybody that’s ever played the game. Maybe not quite at Tiger Woods or Jack Nicklaus’ level, but he’s tucked right in there as the player from the modern era whose win percentage really is exceptional.
It’s better than the likes of the previous generation to him of Phil Mickelson, David Duval or Ernie Els, as well as also being better than his modern-day contemporaries of Dustin Johnson, Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth. Wherever you want to go with players of this era, McIlroy is at the top of the conversation.
McIlroy has got the guile, he has the heart, but it’s still the majors he needs to add to. He had a great opportunity at the US Open but bogeyed three of the last four holes and that’s nothing other than making mistakes under pressure, dropping concentration at the critical times.
How McIlroy can become Europe’s all-time great
I only put Seve Ballesteros and Sir Nick Faldo ahead of him at this moment in time when you’re looking at European golfers, because more major wins is a big thing. You can win all the DP World Tour events and all the PGA Tour events, but you’re ultimately going to be judged at this elite level by the majors.
Ballesteros has won five and Faldo has won six majors and that’s ultimately going to be a big part of it, but charisma also plays a big part. It’s not just about being the most decorated in terms of what you’ve won, but also what you stand for and what you carry.
This is a pretty tumultuous time in the game and in the sport and McIlroy’s got a huge role to play in that. Ballesteros did it in his own way, particularly when it came to Ryder Cup. He dragged Europe from the bootstraps up to where we are now, as a really competitive team, and a lot of the credit rightfully has gone Seve’s way.
That’s part of who’s going to be judged the greatest-ever European player. It’s not just what you win, although a huge part of it, it’s also what you’ve done and how you’ve represented the tour and how you’ve represented your colleagues in Europe.
McIlroy is charismatic in terms of how he plays. Yes, he makes mistakes, but that’s what draws us in. A steady Eddie like Scottie Scheffler doesn’t seem to get the plaudits, because he’s so steady and doesn’t show a lot of emotion. We don’t really associate with him as human as we do with McIlroy.
We have seen McIlroy win great events and do great things, but we’ve also seen him at his lowest. We saw him in tears at the Ryder Cup in Whistling Straits and we have seen him lose opportunities to win majors, which mean so much to him, so that makes him human and draws us in.
That’s what drew us into Seve Ballesteros as well. He was not the perfect human being and he was not the perfect golfer, but people who have a little bit about them can create a lot of charisma and a lot of interest.
Where can McIlroy improve?
The technique is such an important part of the game and what has been a little alarming for me about McIlroy in the last couple of years is how his iron play has come off the boil. It used to be a real strength of his game and we’re seeing it now become only average on tour.
We know the metric of strokes-gained approach, essentially iron play, is a huge determining factor in success. He’s right to be working on his technique, but the reason why he didn’t win the US Open was down to concentration rather than anything in his game.
The one thing that I think he’s missing more than anything else and where he loses ground is that he doesn’t have the same intensity and concentration levels for 72 holes that the likes of Scheffler and Schauffele are producing.
Winning tournaments is a marathon, not a sprint, as Woods used to say. Woods was brilliant at not dropping concentration, not having a slack six holes or a slack shot at the wrong time that cost him a double-bogey. All those little drops in concentration, they add up.
The Irish Open was a great example at Royal County Down this year. Yes, Rasmus Hojgaard had an unbelievable finish and the golfing gods shone on him, but the bottom line is McIlroy left it behind him and didn’t lose it in the last five holes there.
People can argue that the three-putt at the 17th was what cost him, but he should have been five ahead playing that hole with the quality of golf he was playing. He didn’t put the distance between him and the chasing pack on the leaderboard, which allowed Hojgaard to get over the line with a big finish.
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I’d like to see him coming out of the blocks quicker, getting control of tournaments after 54 holes and then racing to victory. That’s how Tiger Woods won most of his tournaments – leading after three rounds in 95 per cent of the events that he won.
McIlroy doesn’t lead enough after three rounds and often leaves himself too much to do going into the last round. The difference between winning seven times as Scheffler has done and winning three times that McIlroy has done boils down to a couple of shots and high levels of concentration and intensity consistently throughout a tournament.
Who will win the Race to Dubai? Watch Rory McIlroy in action at the DP World Tour Championship throughout the week live on Sky Sports Golf. Get Sky Sports or stream the DP World Tour and more with NOW.
