Rory McIlroy rallies by Xander Schauffele to win Wells Fargo

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Rory McIlroy has a full head of steam heading into the PGA Championship.

McIlroy won the Wells Fargo Championship for a record fourth time Sunday with another dominating performance at Quail Hollow, easily overcoming a two-stroke deficit to beat Xander Schauffele by five shots.

No other player has won the event more than twice.

McIlroy closed with a 6-under 65, playing the final 11 holes in 6 under even with a double bogey on the 18th hole. He finished at 17-under 267 after four straight rounds in the 60s and won his second straight PGA Tour event after teaming with Shane Lowry to take the Zurich Classic two weeks ago in New Orleans.

That should give McIlroy plenty of momentum heading to Kentucky for the PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club, the site of his last major win 10 years ago.

"I really got some confidence," McIlroy said. "My golf swing feels a lot more comfortable than it has. So going to a venue next week where I've won, it feels like the stars are a lining a little bit. But I've got a lot of golf to play and a lot of great players to try to beat next week. Going into the next major of the year feeling really good about myself."

Schauffele shot 71.

McIlroy trailed by two after Schauffele made an eagle on the par-5 seventh, but the world's second-ranked player quickly shifted into another gear.

The star from Northern Ireland pulled even after birdies on Nos. 8 and 9 and then made a 33-foot eagle putt on the 10th for his first lead of the tournament after Schauffele settled for birdie.

Schauffele's bogey at 12 gave McIlroy more breathing room.

McIlroy then essentially sealed the win on 13 when he made birdie and Schauffele missed another putt for bogey, resulting in a four-shot advantage.

But McIlroy wasn't done.

He made another birdie on 14 and then punctuated the victory by chipping in from the sand for another eagle on No. 15 to move to 19 under, completing a remarkable stretch of playing eight holes ion 8-under par.

"He's Rory McIlroy, you know?" Schauffele said. "He hits it 350 yards in the air downwind and he has shorter clubs into firm greens than anyone else. When he's on, he's on. Hats off to him for winning. He played unbelievably well."

At that point the only question was if McIlroy could match his own course record of 61 and tournament record of 21 under.

He didn't.

But he managed a smile when he blew his second shot on No. 18 over the green and into the water and had to take a drop. He tapped in for a double bogey victory as the crowd chanted his name.

"I birdied mine and then I just went on a run that for whatever reason I'm able to go on at this golf course," McIlroy said. "Quail Hollow, Charlotte in general has been really good to me over my career and this is just another great day to sort of add to all the rest of them."

McIlroy's finish was reminiscent of 2010 when he carded six straight 3s en route to a final round 62 to beat Phil Mickelson for his first career PGA Tour win. He also won the event in 2015 and 2021.

This was his 10th career top 10 at the event, the most at any PGA Tour stop in his career

McIlroy has long called Quail Hollow one of his favorite courses because it allows for him to take advantage of his length off the tee. But it was his putting that won him the 26th career PGA Tour title Sunday.

He needed just 25 putts, making five longer than 10 feet.

For Schauffele, it was a disappointing ending to a strong week.

He finished second for the second straight year and saw his winless drought stretch to 39 tournaments, a streak dating to 2022. He led by four shots after 36 holes.

Schauffele is now 3-for-9 converting 54-hole leads into wins in his PGA Tour career and has 21 top 10s and 13 top 5s since his last win at the Genesis Scottish Open

Byeong Hun An was third at 9 under, and Jason Day and Sungjae Im tied for fourth a 6 under.

McIlroy thanked his mother Rosie, who was in Florida, after the Mother's Day victory.

"My mom's amazing," McIlroy said. "I think most people know my dad, but my mom is like the sort of rock or the gel that holds our family together, she always has been. I said this last night, I'm probably a lot more like my dad than I am my mom, but I wish I was a little more like my mom at times."

Max Homa turned in the shot of the day.

Homa holed from the rough from 213 yards for an eagle on No. 1, with his ball landing on the front of the green and rolling all the way to the back before hitting the flagstick hard and dropping in. But the two-time Wells Fargo champion couldn't build on the momentum after that shooting 72 and finishing in ninth place.

Source: ESPN

Rory McIlroy, Shane Lowry win 2024 Zurich Classic of New Orleans in playoff

The cream finally rose to the top at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans.

In a city where celebrity chefs like the late Paul Prudhomme and Emeril Lagasse rule, past major winners and European Ryder Cup stars Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry teamed up to take the title with a par on the first hole of a sudden-death playoff on Sunday in Avondale, Louisiana.

McIlroy, No. 2 in the world, and Lowry, No. 39, needed a birdie at 18 to finish with a 72-hole total of 25-under 263 and force a playoff with Chad Ramey and Martin Trainer who finished their round two hours and 59 minutes earlier after shooting a tournament-tying 9-under 63 in the alternate-shot format employed in the final round.

McIlroy earned his 25th career Tour title, tying Tommy Armour, Johnny Miller and Macdonald Smith for 23rd on the all-time Tour wins list.

“To win any PGA Tour event is very cool, but to do it with one of your closest friends, we’ve known each other for a long, long time, probably like over 20 years, so to think about where we met and where we’ve come from, to be on this stage and do this together, really, really cool journey that we’ve been a part of, and yeah, just awesome to be able to do it alongside this guy,” McIlroy said.

On paper, the playoff was a mismatch of epic proportions. Ramey, 31, entered the week ranked 233rd in the world and outside the top 125 in the FedEx Cup standings, his lone win at the opposite-field Corales Puntacana Championship in 2022.

Trainer, 33, won the 2019 Puerto Rico Open but has struggled so much in the ensuing years that he considered finding another line of work. He entered the week ranked 387th in the world and 171st in the FedEx Cup standings. With both in need of a partner last year, they joined forces and recorded a top-10 finish at the Tour’s lone official team event during the FedEx Cup season.

“So decided to run it back this year, and I feel like we have a good thing going,” Trainer said.

On a windswept Sunday, they combined to make 11 birdies, including at the first five holes on the back nine and take the clubhouse lead.

“We just had it going so well,” Trainer said. “I don’t want to take all the credit for the putting because Chad also putted extremely well, but it worked out so good.”

Ramey agreed that Trainer’s putter was deadly and the birdies kept piling up.

“I finally had to putt on hole 13 or 14 and I hadn’t putted since the second hole,” Ramey said. “I was just trying to give Martin some good looks.”

Then they had time for lunch and waited as Ryan Brehm and Mark Hubbard (69), who finished third, gave it their best shot. Hubbard credited a text from his brother on Saturday night that helped pump him up about playing in the second-to-last group with McIlroy and Lowry, telling him to treat it as his personal Ryder Cup. “This is about the closest thing certainly that I’ve had so far in my career. I definitely took that to heart and tried to be really grateful for that opportunity today to kind of feel what that might feel like, playing against an all-Euro team and that crazy format. Alternate shot is just so stressful,” Hubbard said.

Narrowly missing out on joining the playoff when Brehm’s 10-foot birdie putt from the fringe at the last burned the right edge couldn’t spoil what still amounted to a successful partnership.

“We’re still going to party tonight,” Hubbard added.

For much of the day, it looked like 54-hole leaders Zac Blair and Patrick Fishburn, who grew up playing together in Ogden, Utah, and had been teammates in junior high, high school and and college at BYU, would both be celebrating their first Tour victories. However, they made a double bogey at a par 3 on each side, the latter at the 17th hole and it sealed their fate, a fourth-place tie (72).

McIlroy and Lowry entered the day trailing by two and their hopes for wearing the belts awarded to the champions became dicier after making bogey on two of their first three holes. But they bounced back with four birdies in a five-hole stretch starting at the seventh and played the last 12 holes in 5 under.

“It showed a lot about our characters and how much we wanted to win this thing,” Lowry said.

None of it came easily, including at 13 when McIlroy had to play from 111 yards in a sand-filled divot at 13 and chunked it. Still, they salvaged par. At 14, McIlroy drew a beauty at the par 3 that stopped 10 feet past the hole and twirled his club in satisfaction, but Lowry, who switched putters this week and admitted he never fully trusted the club, misread the putt. At 16, McIlroy drove into a fairway bunker but Lowry wedged from 133 yards to 10 feet – “pulled it a bit,” he said – and McIlroy clenched his fist when the birdie putt dropped to make it a three-way tie at the top. Just when they seem poised to put the tournament away, Lowry missed the 17th green wide right and they failed to rescue par and dropped one stroke behind again. But McIlroy’s pitch from left of the green at the par-5 18th hopped and stopped 3 feet from the hole for the tying birdie and a round of 4-under 68.

The playoff, which returned to 18, lasted just one hole because Trainer duffed a chip for his team’s third shot and after making putt after putt all day, he failed to convert a 6-foot par putt to keep their dream of winning alive. Trainer looked up to the sky in dismay, knowing he had pushed the putt right of the hole.

“Golf is hard, and sometimes it doesn’t go your way,” he said.

It marked the first win of the Tour season for McIlroy, who had recorded just one top-10 finish to date at the Valero Texas Open earlier this month, and the first victory for Lowry since claiming the 2019 British Open. (The latter also became exempt for the final three Signature events.)

“We felt like coming into the week that we both could do with a big jump in the FedEx Cup, and we both said at the start of the week, let’s go and get 400 points each. That’s what we’ve done, and I nearly feel a little bit bad taking them because Rory carried me a lot of the way. But yeah, they’re mine, and they’re not going away,” Lowry said.

From playing together in junior golf to the Ryder Cup and now winners at the Zurich Classic, Lowry and McIlroy have shared a special bond.

“Anytime this man wants to partner with me, I’ll be happy to do so,” Lowry said.

“I’d say we’re going to come back and defend next year; what do you think?” McIlroy said to his partner.

“I hope so,” Lowry said. “I’ll be here.”

Source: Golfweek