[caption id="attachment_71500" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Rickie Fowler, left, with Phil Mickleson during the 2010 Ryder Cup. "]
The name Rory McIlroy isn’t necessarily esteemed in the halls of academia, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a grasp of history. His return to Quail Hollow for the Wells Fargo Championship, where he shot a final-round 62 two years ago for his first American professional victory, may have presaged an encore performance. But McIlroy knew only too well that the North Carolina tract is also break-out ground, citing Anthony Kim and himself. And Rickie Fowler.
Yes, the Wells Fargo turned out to be a coming-out party for the man in orange, whose hair billows from out of his cap much like McIlroy’s used to, only not in curls. Fowler stiffed a 133-yard approach shot to within four feet of the pin on the 18th green to win a playoff on the first extra hole at Quail Hollow over McIlroy and D.A. Points on Sunday.
McIlroy shot rounds of 70, 68 and 66 to put himself into contention come Sunday morning. Bogeys at the third and fourth holes on the heels of a birdie at the second set him back a bit, and he was three strokes off the lead through six holes.
Birdies at the seventh, eighth and 10th holes pushed McIlroy into a share of the lead, although he just missed an eagle putt at 10 that would have put him alone in the driver’s seat. Another bogey at 11 dropped McIlroy back a peg, but a birdie at 14 restored his position at the top.
The tournament turned for McIlroy at the two finishing holes on Sunday. He bogeyed 17 when his makeable par putt drifted left of the cup. The downhill trajectory, with water lurking below, may have spooked McIlroy a bit. That, again, dropped him behind D.A. Points, with whom he was paired and who had yet to make a bogey over the weekend, although Points had left a lot of birdies out on the course with putts that just failed to drop.
Points finally got his bogey at 18 and McIlroy could have won the tournament outright had he sunk his birdie putt of about eight feet, but the ball rolled past the cup and the playoff was on, with Fowler waiting in the clubhouse.
Once Fowler’s approach shot settled on the 18th green in the playoff, everything became pretty much moot, as neither McIlroy nor Points were in any position to get down with a single putt.
Despite his inability to close the deal, McIlroy had little trouble dealing with the result.
“For Rickie to go out and play that hole the way he did, he deserved to win,” McIlroy said. “Overall, it’s been a decent week, to come back after three weeks off and get myself in the mix, I gave myself a chance to win, was nice. It gives me a bit of confidence going into [The Players Championship this week].
“[Quail Hollow] is a course that I just love to play, and when you enjoy playing a golf course, you usually do well and this is definitely one of my favorite stops of the year.”
EUROPEAN TOUR
A late surge lifted Gareth Maybin into joint-seventh place at the Reale Seguros Spanish Open in Seville. The closing holes had punished Maybin over the first three rounds, with two bogeys, a double and a triple littering his cards, but he managed five consecutive birdies beginning at 13 on Sunday en route to a round of 67. That followed rounds of 73, 75 and 71, leaving him two strokes under par for the event and six behind medalist Francesco Molinari.
Peter Lawrie might have joined Maybin at 286, but his double bogey at 18 on Sunday scuttled that. Lawrie tied for 16th place after rounds of 71, 73, 71 and 73.
Simon Thornton got a share of 32nd place with his score of 292 (73-73-74-72). The cut was set at 148, which removed Damien McGrane, 150 (75-75), Shane Lowry, 152 (77-75), and Michael Hoey, 153 (75-78), from weekend play.
ADAMS GOLF PRO TOU
Mark Murphy finished 17th in the Mary Bird Perkins Merrill Lynch Open at Santa Maria Golf Club in Baton Rouge, La. Rounds of 71, 74, 68 and 71 left Murphy four strokes under par for the event and 15 behind runaway winner Michael Arnaud.
