There aren’t a lot of golf courses that don’t set up well for Rory McIlroy. But ones like Bethpage Black, where the PGA Championship starts Thursday, are tailored for him.
The four-time major champion is aiming for his third PGA Championship win this week at the hulking golf course on Long Island, where length and accuracy off the tee will be at a premium. Stretching out to more than 7,500 yards and a par-70, with thick rough aided by a mild winter and some early-week rain, performance with the driver is going to be key.
That just so happens to be the strength’s of McIlroy’s game.
“You have to hit the ball in the fairway,” McIlroy said after playing 11 practice holes Tuesday morning. “I think that’s a big stat, driving accuracy. Obviously you still need to get it out there, but at the same time, you’re going to give yourself a much better chance playing from these fairways because it is playing long, and if you start to miss these fairways, you’re not going to be able to get to the greens out of the rough with a 4- or 5-iron.
“I think fairways are very much a premium this week.”
McIlroy, who turned 30 this month, is No. 1 on the PGA Tour in strokes-gained off the tee, gaining 1.326 shots on the field per round with the way he drives it. The only other player on Tour to eclipse one shot is Jon Rahm (1.000).
Yet McIlroy only hits 59.06 percent of the fairways, good for 153rd on the Tour. That shows just how important driving the ball far means in today’s game — and will mean at Bethpage.
“It’s a long golf course, and it plays even longer with the cold and wet conditions,” McIlroy said. “Length is definitely going to be a big factor this week.”
McIlroy won The Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass in mid-March, and has finished outside of the top 10 only twice in his 10 tournaments this season. One of those was his tie for 21st in April at the Masters, where a win would have completed his career Grand Slam.
And it seems as if it has been long time since the Northern Irishman won a major, the most recent coming at the 2014 PGA at Valhalla in Louisville, Ky. There have been a couple of close calls since then — including a second place at last year’s British Open. But newly married and with a fresh mindset, McIlroy seems primed to get back into the biggest hunts.
“I think you’re sort of climbing each major as a rung in the ladder,” McIlroy said. “There are a lot of one-time major winners, but then when you can call yourself a multiple major champion, that’s pretty cool. You join another list, and then you sort of try to keep going.”
It seemed as if McIlroy were going to charge through the record books when he won his first major at the 2011 U.S. Open at Congressional. That was a wet week outside of Washington, D.C., just like this one is starting out to be.
McIlroy knows that winning these tournaments takes a lot. And this week, it starts with his driver.
“This is my 11th PGA Championship. It’s like, where did those go?” he said. “Every week that I tee it up, I feel like I’m gaining more experience that I can put into the next tournament and the next tournament. I still believe my best days are ahead of me.”
