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PGA TOUR Player of the Year 2019: Breaking down the four candidates

By Brandon Raper

ATLANTA, GEORGIA - AUGUST 25: Brooks Koepka of the United States and Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland look on from the eighth tee during the final round of the TOUR Championship at East Lake Golf Club on August 25, 2019 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)
ATLANTA, GEORGIA - AUGUST 25: Brooks Koepka of the United States and Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland look on from the eighth tee during the final round of the TOUR Championship at East Lake Golf Club on August 25, 2019 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images) /
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Rory McIlroy PGA TOUR Player of the Year 2019
ATLANTA, GEORGIA – AUGUST 25: Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland celebrates with the FedExCup trophy after winning during the final round of the TOUR Championship at East Lake Golf Club on August 25, 2019 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Sam Greenwood/Getty Images) /

You have no idea how much I wanted to put Rory McIlroy on top of this list. Legitimately. And I know there’s a sizable portion of this audience that will let me hear it on Twitter over this pick.

Look – I’m with all of you. Rory McIlroy is deserving of this award like few other players ever have been. But when it came time to make this decision, I simply couldn’t pull the trigger.

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Let’s start with all the reasons Rory should win the 2019 PGA TOUR Player of the Year award. He won three tournaments in 2019, including two of the biggest on the entire TOUR slate in THE PLAYERS and the TOUR Championship. That last one at East Lake, of course, won him the season-long FedEx Cup championship for the second time in his illustrious career, along with a $15 million bonus. That might be the equivalent of a birthday check from Grandma for most of us, but that’s a LOT of zeroes, even for Rors.

McIlroy also earned a whopping 14 top-ten finishes in his 19 starts, his 73.68% mark well ahead of Jon Rahm’s 60% clip. Oh, by the way, Rahm isn’t even up for this award, if that tells you what you need to know.

I’d make the case against Rory’s victory here, but by now, you know that’s coming up very soon. Suffice to say that while McIlroy’s consistently dominant form left me in awe nearly every time he teed it up, we were witness to something equally special, and in a way far more historic, from the likely winner of this award. The FedEx Cup is great, but it’s not what we measure the all-time greats by. Not yet, at least.

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