PGA Tour season ends after St. Jude Championship, Rory McIlroy hits new low
Rory McIlroy’s rough season continued last weekend as he finished tied for 68th at the FedEx St. Jude Championship, struggling with the nickname “almost the man in golf”.
Rory McIlroy had what can only be described as an alarming performance, the worst performance of his career, at last weekend’s FedEx St. Jude Championship.
McIlroy finished 68th, and Jordan Speith and Max Homa performed similarly poorly, but surprisingly, they were the only two to finish lower than McIlroy. The Northern Irishman finished Memphis with some worrying statistics, including the second-worst driving week of his career (-4.015), the 21st-worst driving week of his career (-3.126) and the third-worst driving week of his career (-7.833). The world No. 3 finished at nine over par, 26 strokes better than winner Hideki Matsuyama, and dropped to fifth in the FedEx Cup standings, 3,974 points behind leader Scottie Scheffler. McIlroy had a tough round on Sunday, managing just one birdie and hitting his tee shot into the water on the par-3 14th hole for a triple-bogey 6. Earlier last week, McIlroy said he would start thinking of himself as the “almost guy” of the sport after recent disappointments at the U.S. Open and Olympics. Bryson DeChambeau won his second U.S. Open title, bogeying three of the final four holes (including a missed two-foot putt) to end his decade-long wait for another major victory. A few weeks later, McIlroy looked like he could win an Olympic medal for Ireland, but ultimately fell just a few strokes short of victory. Speaking ahead of the FedEx St Jude Championship in Memphis, Tennessee, McIlroy told reporters: “I just have to finish tournaments better. There’s been times where I’ve done that, like Quail Hollow, for example, but also obviously the US Open, you know, the Olympics.” “Well, I feel like, you know, somehow this year, maybe the last two years, I just found ways to hit the wrong shots at the wrong time, and that could go into my preparation and maybe trying to practice a little bit more under pressure at home. You know, in golf you go through different things, you go through little struggles, but you have to try to find a way to overcome them.
“And my problem right now is, it’s very good, but it’s not good enough to win silverware,” he continued, acknowledging he had done some soul-searching. “It’s just, you know, something I have to work on.”