[PHOTO: Kevin C. Cox]
Rory McIlroy has stuck it to Scottie Scheffler in the past couple of months. First, McIlroy made up six shots on Scheffler in the final round to win the Tour Championship and FedEx Cup title in August. Now McIlroy has dethroned Scheffler as the No.1 player in the world after a seven-birdie, three-bogey final-round 67 to win the CJ Cup in South Carolina and ascend once again as the best player in the game.
McIlroy spent most of the round at Congaree Golf Club locked in a duel with Kurt Kitayama, the pair tied at 16-under par before McIlroy broke the deadlock with back-to-back birdies on the par-3 14th and par-4 15th holes.
On 14, the four-time Major champion hit a fabulous tee shot from 208 metres that finished 13 feet from the hole before rolling in the putt. On 15, a driveable par 4, he unleashed a 296-metre drive to a sandy area 20 paces from the hole. McIlroy proceeded to knock his second shot to five feet and convert to give himself a two-shot cushion.
He expanded that to three – which he ultimately needed after a couple late stumbles – with another birdie at the 16th after making a 21-footer.
McIlroy’s irons are TaylorMade’s “Rors Proto” muscleback blades based off the company’s P730 irons, and he picked up nearly four shots on the field with his approach shots. On the greens, he was 15th in strokes gained/putting, gaining more than six shots on the field with his TaylorMade Spider X mallet. He also ranked third in putts per green in regulation.
Still, as it almost aways is when he contends, the key weapon for McIlroy was his 9-degree TaylorMade Stealth Plus driver with a Fujikura Ventus Black 6x shaft.
McIlroy led the field in driving distance at 349.6 yards (319.7 metres), a number difficult to comprehend. And for those who note that the stat is based off only the two holes formally measured for the distance stat, McIlroy did not hit a tee shot on a par 4 or par 5 less than 300 yards in the final round except for a safety shot on 18. And all but two of McIlroy’s drives were more than 290 metres, including a 352-metre bomb (the second-longest tee shot of the entire week) that set up a birdie at the par-5 fourth.
Not surprisingly he was first in strokes gained/off the tee, picking up nearly six shots on the field.
All of which led to another number: the ninth time McIlroy has reached world No.1.
What Rory McIlroy had in the bag at the 2022 CJ Cup:
Ball: TaylorMade TP5x
Driver: TaylorMade Stealth Plus (Fujikura Ventus Black 6x), 9 degrees
3-wood: TaylorMade SIM2, 15 degrees
5-wood: TaylorMade Stealth Plus, 19 degrees
Irons (3-9): TaylorMade Rors Proto; (PW): TaylorMade Milled Grind 3
Wedges: TaylorMade Milled Grind 3 (54, 58 degrees)
Putter: TaylorMade Spider X Hydro Blast
