Staff WriterFresh off Major success and a Players Championship triumph at TPC Sawgrass, Rory McIlroy’s PGA Grand Slam speculation has reached a fever pitch.
McIlroy returns to one of his many ‘happy hunting grounds’ at Quail Hollow with the golf world abuzz: could he hoist the Wanamaker Trophy once more?
With the second men’s Major of the year less than a week away, McIlroy is riding high after winning the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, The Players Championship and, after an 11-year drought, the Masters.
The metaphorical monkey is off his back—and it’s been replaced with a Green Jacket.
Quail Hollow has long been McIlroy’s personal playground, and with McIlroy PGA Grand Slam hopes escalating, he’ll feel right at home. In 2010, the Northern Irishman fired a final-round 62 to clinch his maiden PGA Tour victory by seven strokes, setting a then-course record.
Five years later, he dusted the field with a –21 total, matched the seven-stroke margin and reset the record again with a stunning 61 in round three.
His eye for this layout is matched only by his power off the tee. Last season, McIlroy ranked fourth in Strokes Gained off-the-tee, picking up 0.73 strokes on the field and averaging 320 yards of driving—20 yards more than the tour average.
For context, the average amateur manages just 234 yards, nearly 90 yards shy of McIlroy’s salvo.
But Rory won’t have Quail Hollow to himself. Justin Thomas, a past PGA Champion here, is determined to write his own story.
Thomas electrified the RBC Heritage in April with a 21-ft playoff putt—an angle under 9% of amateurs could convert, according to Shot Scope’s growing database.
Still, golf is a game of nerves. As 2002 PGA Champion and Shot Scope Ambassador Rich Beem reminds us, champions must be “comfortable being uncomfortable.”
Having donned the Green Jacket after crushing heartbreak in 2011, McIlroy has already proven he thrives in the pressure cooker.
Could this mark the start of a second career Grand Slam? Will the McIlroy PGA Grand Slam saga culminate in triumph, or will Thomas deliver a déjà vu moment?
The answers await at the close of play on May 18th.
