Rory, Rickie, Phil and bizarre PGA finish in darkness, 10 years later

To watch the 2014 PGA Championship is to recollect that you’re now outdated.

There are many unusual issues in regards to the footage that greet you if you queue up the YouTube highlights: two-toned, obviously-out-of-style outfits; grainy, not-quite-HD video; outdated, acquainted voices that haven’t appeared on CBS telecasts in many years. And then, suddenly, the digital camera shoots to one of many three males who determined that 12 months’s match — additionally held at this week’s match host, Valhalla, in the outskirts of Louisville — and there isn’t any avoiding the plain. You are older now, as a result of so are they.

First there’s Rickie Fowler, a peak-Rickie Fowler highlighter orange shirt flapping towards a rail-thin torso, sporting the form of shock-to-the-eyes shade and swagger that makes it instantly apparent how he grew to become a fan favourite. Then there’s Phil Mickelson, huskier than in latest years, brown curls springing from beneath his unusually wide-brimmed hat — trying like a boy trapped in a person’s physique. And then, charging up behind them to the 72nd tee field of the 2014 PGA Championship, there’s essentially the most prudent reminder of a bygone period: Rory McIlroy, hair longer and pants wider, eyes lowered right into a form of demise glare. The golf world is wrapped solely round his fingertips in this grainy picture, and although this Rory doesn’t understand it but, he has about quarter-hour left till it’s going to depart him for at the very least one other decade.

It is the oddity of witnessing this scene in May of 2024 that nearly makes you neglect the oddity of witnessing this scene in August of 2014 — which is a disgrace, as a result of that picture was nearly weirder.

The finish of the 2014 PGA Championship at Valhalla started with a late-summer rain bathe thrashing towards the humid warmth of Louisville in August. The water fell in huge globs on Sunday morning, dousing the golf course in puddles massive sufficient to delay play for greater than an hour. By the time issues resumed, the match — and its chief — shortly discovered themselves in a race towards daylight.

Rory McIlroy entered the day in a one-shot lead at Valhalla, however the rain appeared to sap him of his power. A pair of bogeys on the primary six holes on Sunday despatched him tumbling down a leaderboard stuffed with names like Fowler, Mickelson and Henrik Stenson, who have been benefiting from the newly softened situations.

As McIlroy reached the flip, it appeared the match would possibly properly have ended this fashion — echoing eerily of his heartbreaking collapse on the 2011 Masters. But this time, it was the tenth gap that saved his match.

After an excellent second shot on the par-5, McIlroy poured in a prolonged eagle putt to vault him again into rivalry, setting off a stretch of 5 below in 9 holes to grab again the match. Clinging to a two-stroke lead on the seventeenth, McIlroy gave the impression to be on the point of a fourth-career main victory, needing solely a par on the final to push previous Mickelson and Fowler. But a much bigger enemy loomed a lot nearer: darkness that threatened to push the match to a Monday finish.

As CBS’s broadcasters murmured about it being “much darker than it looks,” Fowler and Mickelson proved as a lot to be true, permitting McIlroy to tee off with them on the 72nd tee field, making certain that McIlroy (and the match) might finish earlier than the horn on Sunday. A bizarre sequence ensued, with all six golfers from the ultimate three pairings ambling up the 18th fairway collectively. Mickelson and Fowler, each an eagle away from tying McIlroy and probably forcing further holes, hit their approaches into the 18th with the match chief standing simply toes away. Neither golfer hit their method notably shut, and each narrowly missed their eagle tries.

The runway was open for McIlroy, again in the tough in a clumsy stance, to win the match with a par on the final. He would take benefit, blasting an method into the entrance bunker, chipping up onto the inexperienced and two-putting for a one-stroke main championship victory.

Flashbulbs illuminated the darkness across the 18th as McIlroy unleashed a livid fist-pump to have fun the event, and once more from simply off the 18th inexperienced, when a still-boyish Rory by accident spilled the lid off the Wanamaker Trophy because the night time descended. The botched celebration was a becoming ending to an odd remaining spherical — and what stays, a decade later, the latest main championship of McIlroy’s taking part in life.

Much has modified in the years since that Sunday in Louisville. The PGA Championship has new cameras, new types, and even a brand new slot on the professional golf schedule. McIlroy has seen main championship glory fade right into a distant reminiscence, whereas Fowler and Mickelson’s legacies have taken on new hues. But because the golf world turns again to Valhalla once more this week, at the very least one factor has not: Rory is in the sector, and he’s one of many match favorites.

He’s totally different now, hardened in the way in which that point calluses all of us. But not too totally different or hardened to dream of one other historic week in Louisville.

In these methods, at the very least, it appears we’re not all that totally different. Just 10 years older.

James Colgan

Golf.com Editor

James Colgan is a information and options editor at GOLF, writing tales for the web site and journal. He manages the Hot Mic, GOLF’s media vertical, and makes use of his on-camera expertise throughout the model’s platforms. Prior to becoming a member of GOLF, James graduated from Syracuse University, throughout which era he was a caddie scholarship recipient (and astute looper) on Long Island, the place he’s from. He may be reached at james.colgan@golf.com.