Rory McIlroy was never in contention to win last week at the Zozo Championship but, to his credit, he kept ascending the leaderboard as the tournament wore on.
He bounced back from a disappointing opening 72 to fire 65-63-67 for a T-3 finish in Japan six shots back of the Big Cat.
That signifies four worldwide top-10s in the Northern Irishman’s last five starts. A win in that stretch came at the Tour Championship in August.
I, along with others, disagree with the vote that crowned Rory the 2018-19 PGA Tour Player of the year. That doesn’t take away one of the more consistent years we’ve seen from a player. He led the PGA Tour by a significant margin in total strokes gained (2.551).
Leading in strokes gained off the tee (1.195) and tee to green (2.126) were the biggest factors. Top-25 marks in SG around the green (.297) and putting (.425) helped, too.
McIlroy is making his seventh appearance at Sheshan. Four’s been the magic number with three fourth-place finishes as well as a fifth. The 30-year-old’s worst result came last year with a T-54 (72-77-75-74). He hasn’t finished worse than that in just two events since.
This may be the last we see of Rory in 2019. I envision him emptying the tank to contend for his fourth win of the calendar year.