Weekly Recap: Rory Records One More

There aren't many things in golf right now that would be bigger than a Rickie Fowler win. Oh, Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson, sure. But that's almost an unfair comparison. Maybe No. 2 would be a Rory McIlroy win.

Both Fowler and McIlroy have been struggling -- Fowler much more so -- but they remain among the most popular players in the game, and perhaps the two who come closest to transcending golf. Again, let's leave Woods and Mickelson out of the equation.

Fowler came close to his first win in almost three years on Sunday at the CJ Cup @ Summit, but it was McIlroy closed the deal in Las Vegas with a one-shot win over Summit Club member Collin Morikawa. Fowler tied for third.

More on Fowler in a minute. But first, McIlroy, who even though he ended a long winless drought six months ago, really has not been his former self over the past few years and had fallen to No. 14 in the world rankings. 

McIlroy is enormously important to the PGA Tour -- both on and off the golf course.

As we have seen over and over, most recently at the Ryder Cup, McIlroy is one of the most thoughtful, open, compassionate and cerebral people in golf -- really, in all of sports. Aside from the Brooks Koepka-Bryson DeChambeau hijinks, there isn't a whole lot of personality among the best golfers in the world. Oh, sure, they are nice and decent guys for the most part, but none of them can move the needle as McIlroy can. Yet it's hard to be in a position as one of the faces of the Tour if you aren't great on the course, too.

McIlroy was raw and emotional in the aftermath of the Ryder Cup. He has recently spoken out, and spoken eloquently, about Simone Biles and Naomi Osaka and their challenges with being world-class athletes faced with mental health challenges. Who else does that?

Jon Rahm, Collin Morikawa, Justin Thomas and others are good stewards of the game, but none of them transcends the golf course like McIlroy does.

So it's great that McIlroy is back in the top-10 at No. 8 after becoming the 39th player to win 20 times on the PGA Tour. And there are only a handful of others who have done it before turning 33: Woods, Mickelson, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Tom Watson and Billy Casper. That list is pretty much a history of the PGA Tour over the past 60-plus years. Of course, it's fair to note that McIlroy hasn't won a major in an eternal seven years, but to keep things in perspective there's this little nugget from Kyle Porter of CBS Sports. 

Okay, so what does this win mean for McIlroy and where does he go from here? The downside to all his introspectiveness and social awareness is that he has interests outside of golf, that he isn't focused enough every minute of every day as some of the young, single guys are. But as we saw at the Wells Fargo in May and now the CJ Cup, his game is still good enough to beat anyone, especially when you consider how different Quail Hollow and the Summit Club are, requiring largely different skill sets.

The thing about McIlroy being "back" -- and we went through this a few months ago with Jordan Spieth -- is that the talent pool has never been deeper on Tour. No one has won more than twice so far in 2021, and that doesn't happen often. Rahm, far and away the No. 1 golfer, has only one win. He's really been the only guy all year that has been close to an automatic contender every week. This is a way of saying to that predicting winners or contenders seems harder than ever.

So McIlroy could be back but still not as good, results-wise, as he was when he winning three, four, even five worldwide tournaments in a calendar year. Somewhat quietly, he has eight top-10s in 22 starts this year, but he just hasn't been contending with the same regularity.

There's a lot there to offer hope for a promising second half to McIlroy's career. And he's good for the game off the course, as a Voice of Reason of sorts.

There's still the little pesky problem of winning majors, which he hasn't done in more than seven years. He has shown a real tendency to come up short or even fall apart at the biggest moments in the biggest events. Of course, he knows that. If anyone can figure it out, it's the thoughtful, cerebral McIlroy.

Rickie Fowler
Fowler hasn't won since Phoenix in 2019. He didn't reach the playoffs last season. He didn't qualify for the Masters or U.S. Open. He had fallen outside the top-125 in the world. He entered the week with only one top-10 in almost two years. The only way he got in this tournament was with a sponsor invite. And that's because he's still one of the biggest stars, one of the most popular players in golf -- globally.

Which is why it's so important to the PGA Tour for Fowler to get good again.

Fowler entered the final round in the lead but shot only 1-under on one of the easiest courses around. McIlroy shot 6-under and Morikawa shot 10-under. The tie for third has gotten Fowler all the way back to 82nd in the world, which is a good start.

But we can't lose sight that we thought we saw Fowler becoming Fowler again in the spring, with a tie for eighth at the PGA Championship followed by a T11 at the Memorial. He proceeded to miss the cut in three of his final six tournaments of the season without cracking the top-30.

At the CJ Cup, Fowler was absolutely bombing it off the tee, averaging 320 yards, fifth in the field, just a yard behind McIlroy. He also led the field in greens in regulation but surprisingly it was putting that let him down. Mostly encouraging.

Even though so many people want to see Fowler return to glory, it's just too soon to know for sure, after one good week on a course littered all week with scores in the low 60s (66-66-63-71 for Fowler). But sure, if you want to take a chance on Fowler in a season-long pool/bet, the upside is enormous. We'll get a further read on Fowler right away, as he is off to Japan after another sponsor invite to the ZOZO Championship.

MONDAY BACKSPIN

Collin Morikawa
Before the tournament, we learned that Morikawa was a Summit Club member and once shot a 62. Now he's done it twice. He closed with a 10-under 62 to soar into second place. The biggest takeaway for the week is that Morikawa is once again back to his old self, after a poor playoffs and a so-so Ryder Cup. Morikawa now heads to Japan for this week's ZOZO Championship. As for the other Summit Club member, Maverick McNealy, he fell way back on Sunday to tie for 38th.

Keith Mitchell
Wow, Mitchell was at 18-under through two rounds and thoughts of some unbelievable score entered our minds. 35-under? But no. Mitchell actually shot over par on Saturday before playing well again on Sunday to wind up tied for third with Fowler at 22-under. Mitchell was ranked a disappointing 137th in the world coming in, but this was actually his third top-5 and fourth top-10 in the past six months. How can that be? Well, every other result was outside the top-25 and many a lot worse. Mitchell isn't the only golfer like this. Many of them are. Mitchell moved up to 92nd in the OWGR.

Aaron Wise
Wise keeps on going, and keeps fueling our belief that a breakthrough season is underway. After last week's top-10, this week he tied for fifth. Wise is now up to No. 68 in the world; his career-best is 49th.

Talor Gooch
You could say that Gooch had a backdoor top-5. Which would be accurate. But it doesn't seem quite fair if you shoot a 10-under 62 to get there. Gooch is another guy who may be emerging, finally at age 29. He opened the season with a top-5 at the Fortinet Championship, then just missed a top-10 at the Shriners (T11). He also finished fifth at THE PLAYERS earlier this year. He's up to career-best 51st in the world.

Robert Streb
There were a bunch of 62s shot during the week, four of them by guys in the top-5 on the leaderboard. But only two guys shot 11-under 61s, and Streb was one of them, riding that first-round masterpiece to a tie for ninth. That's his first top-10 since winning the RSM Classic almost a year ago. For the record, the other 61 on the week was shot by Emiliano Grillo on Sunday; he zoomed up to a tie for 18th.

Gary Woodland
After falling out of the top 100 of the OWGR for the first time in eight-plus years, Woodland went 66-65 on the weekend to climb into the top-10, which should move him back into the 80s or 90s. Too soon to know if he's turning it around or this was a one-off but if forced to answer we'd say the latter.

Xander Schauffele
Much has been made of Schauffele's success in limited, no-cut fields. Sure, he has done well, but it's just coincidence. It's not like he has some magical formula for winning them. He tied for 18th, continuing a so-so year, save for the gold medal he won. Schauffele heads back to Japan for another, limited-field, no-cut tournament, the ZOZO Championship.

Justin Thomas
All eyes were on the new partnership between Thomas and caddie Jim "Bones" Mackay. Thomas has fallen outside the top-5 in the world and has been overtaken by some other golfers. Mackay should help but ultimately Thomas will need to play better. He tied for 18th this week.

Dustin Johnson
Johnson has not won on Tour in 2021. He's had a bad year (for him) but started to show improvement late last season and then shined at the Ryder Cup. We thought he could win this week. We were pretty darn wrong. Johnson tied for 45th.

Seonghyeon Kim
About 10 Korean golfers based in Asia get into this field, since the CJ Cup is normally played in South Korea. Kim, ranked 190th in the world, was the highest finisher of this contingent at T32. It's great they are in the tournament but they just can't keep with the best golfers from the PGA and European Tours. (Korea's K.H. Lee tied for 25th, but he is a PGA Tour regular.)

Patrick Reed
Two tournaments into the new season, two poor results for Reed, who tied 68th, 18 shots behind winner Rory McIlroy. It's impossible to know what is behind this slump, which dates to last season. But it certainly bears monitoring and consideration before rostering Reed again.

Harris English
English had to withdraw with a back injury midway through the fourth round. That's all we know right now.

European Tour

Matt Fitzpatrick, coming off a dreadful Ryder Cup, displayed no scar tissue in winning his very next start, the Andalucía Masters in Madrid. It was the Englishman's seventh European Tour title to go along with, um, no PGA Tour titles. So much more was expected State-side of Fitzpatrick, who, like so many other internationals, just hasn't been able to win on the sport's biggest tour. Until he does, these wins will not carry much weight. Besides, the field was enormously weak. There were only two top-50 golfers entered: And after world No. 1 Jon Rahm stunning missed the cut, there was only No. 28 Fitzpatrick left. He moved up to No. 25 in the world with the win, but there are many lower-ranked golfers on the PGA tour more proven.