Dr. Jekyll and Mr. McIlroy

 

With apologies to Robert Louis... and Charles... the Quail Hollow Championship really was the Tale of Two golfers.  I was rooting for my new favorite golfer (Phil) but could not avoid getting caught up in Rory's great charge.  His -10 course record on Sunday was magical and fun to watch.  I naturally thought it would be interesting to see exactly what he did differently in the last two rounds to account for the 16 stroke difference from the first two. 

First, let's look at his all-important ERRORS:

                         1-2          3-4

Driving:             3             0

Short Game:      3             0

Putting:              3             1 (Began the 3rd round with a 3-putt from 27 feet)

Total:                 9             1

Two points:
1.  The difference of 8 Errors, could be viewed as half of the 16 stroke margin.
2.  Rory McIlroy will be the first Winner I have seen to overcome 10 Errors.

Now, the good things:

Long Game Efficiency Index*:  Rounds 1-2 = 2.78  vs.  3-4 = 1.96.  While not a full 4 rounds, the latter is the first I have seen that betters my hypothetical "Perfect" round of 2.00.   Perfect would be 36 long strokes and all 18 greens hit in regulation (36/18 = 2.00).  Rory needed only 30.5 long strokes to achieve 15.5 GIR's.  How?  He took full advantage of the two reachable par 4's and four par 5's. - 12 opportunities!  Rory was on, or close (50 yards), to 11 of these 12 reachable greens - shaving 11 long game strokes or 5.5 per round.  Bottom line, I calculate that he saved 9 of the 16 stroke difference with his long game accuracy and efficiency.

*This is our patent pending method of measuring the overall efficiency of a player's long game. For a better explanation, log onto http://www.shotbyshot.com/. 

Putting

For those of us that watched, it will come as no surprise that the vast majority of the other seven strokes were the result of a hot putter.  With only the one 3-putt, Rory made all the short ones that he should AND holed six putts from outside 20 feet, capped off by the 43 foot birdie on the final hole.