Rory McIlroy, of Northern Ireland, holds up the Wanamaker Trophy after winning the PGA Championship golf tournament at Valhalla Golf Club on Aug. 10, 2014, in Louisville, Ky.Could all this gnashing of teeth and nibbling of nails about the future of professional golf have been a tad bit of wasted energy and angst?
Even if a certain golfer of former greatness whose name momentarily escapes me is struggling to find his C game, much less his A game these days, has golf ever produced a better final round at a major than Sunday afternoon at the PGA Championship?
OK, so if you’re old enough to remember the Sunday back nine of the Masters in 1975, Jack Nicklaus outdueling Johnny Miller and Tom Weiskopf by a single stroke to collect his fifth green jacket, you might have an excellent argument.
But that doesn’t mean it was better than what Rory McIlroy, Phil Mickelson, Rickie Fowler, Henrik Stenson and Co. combined to author atop Louisville, Ky.’s, majestic Valhalla on Sunday evening.
That McIlroy claimed his second major in three weeks for his fourth overall major at the tender age of 25 — this one won with patience, pluck and panache rather than his usual bulldozer tactics — only strengthens the belief that this may be a finish we will long remember.