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 McIlroy made a sizzling start to the final round with three
consecutive birdies to quickly erase a three-stroke deficit and
surge past Sergio Garcia at Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio.
The Northern Irishman carded a 66 to finish at 15-under-par 265,
while Spaniard Garcia (71) was second on 13-under, with Australian
Marc Leishman (67) another shot back in third place.
Defending champion Tiger Woods pulled out of the tournament after
aggravating his troublesome back, raising more questions about the
playing future of the 14-times major champion.
McIlroy, 25, took the world number one ranking for the fifth
separate occasion, and the first since March of last year,
displacing Scott, who had been on top for 11 weeks.
McIlroy, who won the British Open in his previous start two weeks
ago, collected $1.53 million for his first victory in a World Golf
Championships event.
And he did not sound like he was ready to rest on his laurels as he
heads to the PGA Championship at Valhalla in Kentucky, where he will
seek a fourth major title.
“Mentally I’m really sharp,” he told reporters. “It’s the most
comfortable I’ve ever felt trying to close out a golf tournament out
there today.
“It felt normal, like a first or second round. It didn’t feel like
the fourth round. I didn’t get ahead of myself. I just kept playing
shot after shot after shot.
His current form is the best of his career, he said, even better
than at this time two years ago, when he won the PGA Championship by
eight strokes.
Not that he played flawlessly on Sunday, but he invariably
extricated himself from trouble with an assured putting stroke that
limited the damage to just one bogey.
“I had a couple of wobbles, rode my luck a little bit on the back
nine, hit a couple of tree limbs and got lucky a couple of times,”
he admitted.
Garcia finished second to McIlroy for the second event in a row, but
this time had only himself to blame as his putting touch deserted
him.
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“I didn’t feel comfortable on the greens at all, with the speed of the
greens changing quite dramatically after the (morning) rain,” he said.
“They were quite slow and I started second-guessing myself every single
putt. The good putts I hit I misread and the bad ones weren’t going in
the right direction either.”
Garcia's errant drive at the third hole hit a female spectator’s wedding
ring and dislodged the diamond.
He was long gone after hitting his next shot before a search party
eventually located the missing jewel in the thick rough.
Even the early departure of Woods, who pulled out on the ninth hole
after aggravating his surgically-repaired back, could not steal the
limelight from McIlroy.
But the Northern Irishman acknowledged he had a long way to go to be
spoken of in the same breath as Woods.
“I’m not comparing myself. He’s done this millions of times,” McIlroy
said.
(Reporting by Andrew Both in Cary, North Carolina, editing by Gene
Cherry)
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