Rory McIlroy was at his best at Pebble Beach by channeling his inner Scottie Scheffler
PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — As Rory McIlroy walked up to the 18th green at Pebble Beach, cap removed from his head, soaking in his soon-to-be 27th PGA Tour victory, a voice echoed from the wraparound grandstand.
“See what happens when you play like Scottie!” the anonymous heckler shouted as McIlroy went to mark his ball before two final putts solidified his 6-under 66 and back-nine 31.
In a vacuum, McIlroy’s 2-shot victory at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am on Sunday — the latest addition to a resume that becomes entrenched deeper in the history books, season by season — was a masterful display of disciplined course management and consistent ball-striking.
But set against the current competitive landscape in men’s professional golf, it was a step in one particular direction. A sizable gain on the task that only a handful of players can realistically accomplish this year, if they’re lucky: The unseating of Scottie Scheffler.
When McIlroy plays the way he did on Sunday, it’s a reminder that he remains one of the most worthy competitors in the game to do just that. And it appears that McIlroy has shaped his strategy to be the player he can be — and work his way back to the very top of the sport — around the man who sits there right now.
“I’ve never — this is anyone, this is Tiger, this is in the history of golf. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a golfer play as many bogey-free rounds as Scottie. He just doesn’t make mistakes. It’s so impressive,” McIlroy said last Tuesday.
Then McIlroy went out and teed it up in his first PGA Tour event of the season and seemed to channel that skill to perfection. On a blustering Saturday during which pars started to feel like birdies, McIlroy plotted his way around Pebble Beach with a level of care and restraint that he hasn’t always been known to execute.
He “chipped” his irons around the course, always pulling the longer club and reining back his swing to create controlled flighted shots. He chose conservative targets and when he missed them, he found himself on the correct side of the hole with ups and downs dropping left and right. When the birdie looks materialized, he took advantage of them. He shot a bogey-free 65 to rocket up the leaderboard, one stroke off the lead.
Then on Sunday, he did much of the same, this time in the sun, on a relatively soft golf course with a familiar southwest wind. Pebble Beach was ready to tempt him.
“There’s impulses that I have on the golf course that it looks like Scottie doesn’t have and I have to rein those in. I have to try to be a little more disciplined about it, and that’s what I’m trying to do,” McIlroy said after he won by two strokes over his good friend Shane Lowry.
Much will be made of McIlroy’s ridiculously positioned drives on the par 5 14th. With the longest average driving distance in the field (336.70 yards), McIlroy can blast it over the corner of the dogleg and into mid-iron distance. On Sunday, he finally converted on that superhuman ability and made an eagle to get to 20 under, 3 up on the field.
But the shots that might come to define McIlroy’s win and the golf he has ahead of him in 2025 will be his tee shots on Nos. 4, 11, 15 and even 18. He refrained from hitting his driver on all of them. Perhaps not so coincidentally, McIlroy only made one bogey this weekend.
What stands between McIlroy and great golf is never a lack of skill in a particular area or a swing issue that couldn’t be fine-tuned. His short game was inconsistent in 2024. That led to a glaring heartbreak at Pinehurst that still stings. But over the better part of the last decade and a half, McIlroy has been consistently there — strong in every aspect of the physical game. His major championship drought has extended to 11 years, but he has posted 17 top-10s in the majors within that time frame. You can’t do that at this level without simply being a well-rounded player.
It’s always been the psychological side that’s unquestionably held McIlroy back, and he admitted that on Sunday evening. “I think for me it’s always the mental side of it. That probably is the biggest barrier between me being good and being great,” McIlroy said. “You know, for the most part over the course of my career I’ve had the physical attributes and hit the ball long and been able to do things that maybe some other guys aren’t able to do, but it’s something that has been on my mind or my thought processes held me back a little bit.”
The McIlroy that stepped onto the Pebble Beach course on Sunday, warmed up on the very far left side of the driving range, and made Scheffler-esque decisions en route to a relatively stress-free 2-shot victory seems to be more aware of that hurdle than ever. That increased awareness made McIlroy believe he is a stronger player. He is confident that his game can travel now.
“I can win on different venues, different tests, firm courses, soft courses, windy, calm, rain, long golf courses, short golf courses. I just … anything that I feel is thrown my way in the game I feel like I’m prepared to handle it,” he said.
McIlroy’s active effort to mirror what makes the current No. 1 so great is paying off early, with a T4 finish in Dubai and now this win at Pebble Beach. In McIlroy’s words, the oceanside venue is one of the “cathedrals of golf.” He hasn’t won at the courses that can be uttered in the same breath — Augusta National and St. Andrews, namely. These last four rounds at Pebble Beach were validating. They’ll give McIlroy results to lean on as we inch closer to the part of the season that means the most, as he searches for that elusive green jacket.
He’s not looking at Scheffler and using his position as the world No. 1 as his flame — the distance between Scheffler and No. 3 McIlroy in OWGR points is greater than the difference between McIlroy and No. 67 Matt Wallace.
“If it so happens that I get close to that, then that would be cool, but this is just really about trying to get the best out of myself. That’s really it,” McIlroy said. “I know if I can play to my capabilities and do what I did out there today a little bit more, the world rankings or the wins or whatever will really take care of themselves.”
SOURCE: [NYTimes.com]
