Rory McIlroy Wins The Wells Fargo Championship For The 3rd Time In His Career

Maddie Meyer. Getty Images.

Ooooooweeeeee what a golf tournament that was. Quail Hollow always delivers. 

The Green Mile is the most challenging finishing 3 holes on Tour and it did not disappoint today. Just as soon as it looked like Rory had closed the door with a birdies on 14 and 15 and clean pars on the difficult 16 and 17, Rory hit less than driver with a 2-shot lead and hooked it into the penalty area. 

Wasn't quite in the creek but the lie was so gnarly that he took about 10 minutes to eventually decide to take the penalty. From there he hit an unreal 8-iron with the ball below his feet that found the middle of the green

Simple 2-putt from there and Rory was back in the winner's circle for the first time in a year and a half.

This was a win I called in my preview on Wednesday. Nbd. Sometimes there are just courses that bring the best out in guys. Quail Hollow is a course that demands excellence off the tee and that's where Rory thrives at his best. He got lost in the sauce trying to chase Bryson DeChambeau's speed the past year and admitted as such, but took a month off after the Masters to hit the reset button. He came out this week saying that he's committed to hitting a fade moving forward, a stark contrast to the high draw he's hit for essentially his whole career. 

I find it interesting that the success still carried forward despite the change in shot shape. Perhaps we overvalue shot shaping as a whole? Either way it goes to show, if you can hit absolute nukes and take doglegs out of play like he did at the 2nd today, then it really doesn't matter if it shapes left or right.

It has to be said that the success wasn't just tee-to-green for Rory this week. Kinda goes without saying but it's really tough to win on Tour without gaining strokes on the field with the flatstick. Rory was 3rd in SG Putting this week, which is not a place that Rory finds himself often.

Maybe it was lightning in a bottle, maybe he knows Quail Hollow's greens exceptionally well. But that statistic just goes to show what kind of potential Rory would have if he could roll the rock on a more consistent basis. We all know he's got one of the most beautiful swings in golf. We all know he hits bombs off the tee. The rest of this game is there. The putter just seems to come and go, and this week it was definitely there. 

Rory had fallen to 15th in the world before this week, his lowest ranking since he really came on to the scene in 2009. The fact that his rock bottom is 15th whereas guys like Spieth and Fowler crater deep into the double digits (if not lower) says a lot about what kind of talent he is. This W will vault him back into the top 10 and give him a ton of momentum going into the PGA Championship at Kiawah in 2 weeks. He won the PGA there in 2012, so (just like this week) I wouldn't bet against him.

Great W for Rory to get his 19th win on Tour. Great tournament. Bravo Quail Hollow.