Neither seemed like a problem until he played the wrong shot, clipped the tree and wound up with a double bogey Saturday in the Tour Championship. McIlroy stiffened his back, clutched both arms and shouted above the raucous cheers at East Lake.
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Already guaranteed a PGA Tour card with a fifth-place finish on the Web.com Tour’s regular-season money list, the 34-year-old Flores rebounded from a bogey on No. 11 with birdies on the next four holes and closed with a birdie on 18. “I said to myself on the 15th tee, if I can finish with three threes I’ll give myself a chance”.
“I hit a couple of bad drives there coming home and on this golf course if you miss the fairways it’s very hard”, Johnson said after his round. He put up the low round of the day – a 66 – shared by many (six others went 4 under) but put to better use by none.
A third win of the season on Sunday would give McIlroy the first prize of 1.5million USA dollars and the four-time major victor can also pocket the 10million bonus for winning the FedEx Cup if Johnson finishes joint second or worse.
If McIlroy wants to claim the season-ending FedEx Cup series he will have to overtake Johnson.
Chappell has yet to win on the PGA Tour, but held his nerve impressively on Saturday in a bogey-free round, while McIlroy – the victor of the Deutsche Bank Championship earlier this month – was at his brilliant best when it came to ball-striking.
Johnson was one of five players who entered the Tour Championship guaranteed the FedEx Cup title if they won.
The second-ranked American had led by four shots after his third straight birdie at the sixth hole at East Lake in Atlanta, Georgia. He has made just one bogey in 54 holes.
Moore made a clutch 17-foot par save on the fourth playoff hole to force the issue, but McIlroy buried his birdie putt from 14-feet to win it all.
Johnson tried to played a fade from a flyer lie in the rough, and the ball came out high and hit a branch, leaving him in more rough about 60 yards short of the green.
McIlroy, meanwhile, hit a brilliant second shot on the par-5 to under 10 feet, but he lipped out the eagle putt that would have won him the tournament.
McIlroy started his final round two shots off the lead, held overnight by Johnson and Chappell, but turned on the style to shoot five-under-par for his final nine holes.
“I think it was blatantly obvious what I needed to do after Baltusrol, in terms of trying to fix my putting or to at least address some issues in it”, he said.
Moore and Chappell both made par for a 64 and 66 respectively, forcing the trio to go back down the 18th again in a bid to separate them.
The American team chose to wait until after the Tour Championship for Davis Love III to make his fourth and final captain’s pick. “I have played some handsome golf”, he said, “and I’ve eliminated some of the silly mistakes that tend to haunt me”.
The putter cooled off, however, and Chappell stayed in range.
McIlroy fittingly won on the 16th hole, where his remarkable rally began in regulation when he holed out from 137 yards for eagle, and then made birdie on the final hole for a 6-under 64 to join a three-man playoff with Ryan Moore (64) and Kevin Chappell (66).
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On the 17th hole, McIlroy finally emerged victorious. “But it is what it is”.
