With 272 yards to the front of the par-5 18th green on the Jumeirah Estate’s Earth course and another 19 yards to the pin, McIlroy “nutted” a “perfect” 3-wood through the slightly left-to-right headwind.
At the start of the year, McIlroy followed his usual practice of writing down various goals. In just about all of them he has, statistically at least, surpassed his original targets.
Only eight golfers have ever passed $US50 million in career earnings, which is why the fact that two broke the milestone on Sunday feels pretty extraordinary.