IMO, he definitely has an Irish accent. he is from Holywood, a Belfast suburb, for the record. Northern Ireland accents is not as strong as people from Ireland, IME.
Just Tweeted from Rory McIlory:
Looks like some good prospective.
I am still up in the air on Tiger. He did some good things and got back in contention, even leading for a while. But he missed putts that he used to make that would stab his competitors in the heart. The killer instinct is weaker. He also missed 2 putts under 2 feet the last 2 days. they meant everything.
He had a short second shot to a par 5 that would have been huge and he butchered it.
I am wondering if we will be in a more or less permanent Age of Parity in men’s pro golf, and have been for several years now. That is, how many “all-time” greats will be be seeing as time passes?
Here’s one way of looking at it. This is the birth years of all 20th/21st century golfers who have won 4 or more pro majors:
1902
1902
1912
1912
1912 (what a year, eh?)
1917
1929
1929
1935
1939
1940
1942
1949
1957
1957
1970
1975
There’s a pretty steep dropoff after 1957, tho to be fair we should only count people who are younger than say 45 this year (cutoff year 1966). I’m not sure who is in position to be the next to win 4: Els and Harrington are only 1 away each, but the latter has missed the cut in 5 of his last 8 majors, and Els has been very inconsistent of late. Goosen (2) won his last major 7 years ago, and has rarely contended in the last 2 years. Cabrera (2) can still hit it long, but all these guys are now in their 40’s, when majors are very hard to come by.
That leaves the young guns. The problem is that a lot of these guys will typically come out of nowhere and win a major, only to fade back to obscurity. And there’s so many of them, from so many different countries, that it’s just going to be that much harder to stand out from the crowd. Remember Lucas Glover, Luis Oosthuizen (who has only made 2 cuts in majors), Todd Hamilton, or Geoff Ogilvy? Even if one of the kids like Schwartzel shows some staying power, he’ll be having to constantly fight off these hordes. It may be that the overall talent level and depth on the Tour has never been higher, in part from all of the international players we have now. I think it will be a long time before someone (other than Lefty of course) wins 5 majors; this may also have dire consequences for Tiger and his quest for 18 majors.
John DiFool - There’s a big difference between now and 2004 (or 2005, or 2006, or 2007…). Back then, you’d see one person get hot for a while, get touted as the next big thing, or worse, a legitimate challenge to Tiger’s genocidal overlordship, then promptly crumble into nothingness and disappear forever and ever. Remember Vijay Singh and his incredible season? David Duval breaking through? Steve Perks lighting up TPC? (Don’t even get me started on that complete joke Sergio Garcia.) For the longest time, the only thing even approaching a Tiger slayer was Phil Mickelson, a streaky gambler Jack and Arnie would’ve eaten as a light afternoon snack.
Now we have a young crop of players that’s really, really good. And it’s a big one. And an increasingly international one, too; remember that K.J. Choi and Angel Cabrera were right in the thick of things. So even if one falters, another is right there to take the reins. Right now there are legitimately 10, 20 guys who can get white hot and sink them from off the earth for one tournament.
Meanwhile, the old guard is gradually but inexorably on its way out. Let’s not sugarcoat it: Tiger blew it. In fact, you can argue that he blew it twice, once in the third round and again in today’s back nine. Five years ago, he not only would’ve won, he would’ve run away with it. He’s still very good, but no longer a sure thing, and he’s not getting any younger. Phil Mickelson has had huge ups and downs in his life, and it’s clearly starting to wear on him. He’s capable of the occasional big run (as we saw last week), but his days as a consistent contender appear to be over. Ernie Els was nowhere to be seen, Vijay Singh bowed out without making a sound, heck, where was Retief Goosen?
It looks like we’re going to go through a period of fantastic competition with plenty of incredible shots (man, just how many chip-ins were there today?) and excitement, but where no one is the man to beat. I think, ultimately, we’re just going to have to wait and see.
Terrible that Rory McElroy had to go down so hard, but it’s nothing that hasn’t happen ten thousand times at every level of this sport. The fact that he handled it with such maturity spoke volumes. He’ll be back.
I am not so sure Mcilroy will just get over this. He had the brash confidence of youth. He got it knocked out of him in the biggest show golf has, in front of the biggest Tv audience.
Wow, good call.
Unless they changed it very recently, they have two jacket ceremonies — the lame one so TV can quickly get back to infomercials, and a big awards ceremony for the PATRONS.
Nit pick: David Duval was ranked #1 prior to Tiger taking that spot. By 2004, Duval was washed up. There was no “breaking through” for him in that time period.
Otherwise, I agree with your general sentiment that the young guys coming up now are a different lot. We’ve got some real solid players to look forward to watching.
To clarify Tiger was #1 when Duval took over the #1 spot. And Duval lost the number 1 spot to Duval.
Rankings of March 21, 1999. Tiger #1.
Rankings as of March 28, 1999 Duval #1.
Rankings as of July 4, 1999. Tiger #1.
Tiger originally took the number 1 spot in July 1997 when he overtook both Greg Norman (#1) and Ernie Els (#2). TW was #3 on the last week of June and #1 on the first week of July.