For Rory McIlroy, chasing No. 1 again, it’s time to ‘go’

RIDGELAND, S.C. – Rory McIlroy was not in a waiting mood as he stood fidgeting on the tee at the par-4 15th hole at Congaree Golf Club, site of THE CJ CUP in South Carolina. The hole measures 360 yards but features a deep and rugged bunker that juts into the fairway from the left, and most players prudently lay up short with long irons, as McIlroy’s two fellow competitors already had.

Not McIlroy. He stood there looking like Popeye fresh from an all-you-can-eat spinach buffet, until he could stand idly no longer. McIlroy unleashed a mighty swing and launched a moonshot that scoffed at the 320 yards it needed to cover the gaping bunker, his ball then pounding firm turf and scooting between a greenside bunker and a golf bag before finally stopping on the front of the green. The players and caddies on the green weren’t ready for that. Keegan Bradley, playing alongside Thomas and Jon Rahm up ahead, threw both arms over his head, hopefully only in jest at his South Florida neighbor. After the group teed off at 16, McIlroy would walk up and apologize. He was sorry/not sorry.

“Yeah, the longer I stood over that tee shot,” McIlroy said, “the more likely it was that I was going to lay up, so I just needed to step up and hit it. Whether they were on the green or not, I had to go.”

Had to go. In a larger picture frame, that line seems to capture where it is in the golf universe that McIlroy finds himself at the moment. There are few things in golf as feared as McIlroy when he is armed with a hot driver and a belly filled with confidence. At Congaree on Thursday, where his opening 5-under 66 left him just one shot off the lead, McIlroy had both. He is playing well, he is No. 2 in the world (closing fast on top-ranked Scottie Scheffler), he has momentum on his side, and it is time to go. Time to make his move.

Last autumn, McIlroy, 33, was coming off a dismal performance at the Ryder Cup, where the European team’s clear-cut leader had laid an egg, and his team got trounced. He was in tears. Having climbed to No. 1 eight different times in his career – doing so the first time in 2012 – McIlroy had slid to 14th. No-man’s land for him. Frankly, he was lost. So he hit reset and decided to do something about it.

His priority? Reclaiming ownership in his own game. Making sure whatever he was doing had his own thumbprint. Never one to stand in one place, McIlroy had chased more speed, a rabbit hole, and listened to advice outside of Michael Bannon, his instructor since his youth in Northern Ireland. McIlroy eventually would move forward by pausing and taking a step back.

“I sort of went down a path that I realized wasn't for me,” McIlroy said. “That was really it, just trying to get back ownership of my game, my golf swing, and being OK with doing it my way. I think that was the big thing.”

Thursday, outside of a wild opening tee shot, there was little to fault in his game. He ran off three consecutive birdies starting at Congaree’s par-5 fourth, and he tacked on two more birdies on the back, including an easy two-putt birdie after reaching the green at 15. After he’d driven the green, a tanned marshal on the tee was asked if other players in the field also had been doing that. “Uh-uh,” the marshal said, somewhat shock-like, shaking his head side-to-side. You’d have thought he’d just spotted Sasquatch.

Tom Kim, the 20-year-old South Korean who already has two PGA TOUR victories, knows that McIlroy packs plenty of power into a small frame, but it was different to be playing alongside him, and to witness it for 18 holes.

“He makes this game look so easy,” said Kim, who was impressive in his own right. (Kim briefly tied the lead when he stuffed a 9-iron inside 2 feet at the par-4 17th, reaching 6 under on his round, but gave the shot back with an errant drive on the final hole.)

Kim seemed to think getting to play golf with McIlroy (and Rickie Fowler) was the coolest thing since the new iPhone. It was hard not to be a spectator. At the par-5 12th, for instance, McIlroy smashed a drive around the corner that was 80 yards past Kim’s.

“Something you can't copy, I think,” Kim said of McIlroy’s power. “It was really hard to just kind of play my own game sometimes. Seeing the lines he took, and it was like 380 (yards) to the runout and he was saying, ‘Sit.’ I was like, ‘Really? Like, sit?’ It was like 380, but he almost made it.”

McIlroy spent a few days last week in Florida fine-tuning with Bannon, trying to get his right arm to support the club a little better at the top. Swing-wise, he’s in a nice place. And not only does he have the No. 1 world ranking back in view, McIlroy, who became the first three-time winner of the PGA TOUR’s FedExCup in August, can finish in the top spot on the DP World Tour, too. The DP World Tour Championship is Nov. 17-20 in Dubai.

Plenty at stake in mid-October? That is a very nice destination.

“Maybe if I didn't have these two things to go for over the next couple of months, I would take a bit of time off, but I still feel motivated,” McIlroy said. “I think playing well motivates you even more also. There's definitely no lack of that.”

Outside of perhaps a dose more patience on that 15th tee on Thursday, Rory McIlroy did not lack for much.