Rory McIlroy looks for an individual win after a victorious showing with Dustin Johnson at the Driving Relief charity match.
For a player who has long split time on the PGA Tour and European Tour, Rory McIlroy has done a good job hitting most stops in the US.
The Charles Schwab Challenge has yet to be one of them. In several years, it’s coincided with the European Tour’s flagship event, the BMW PGA Championship.
He’s finally made it to Colonial where he looks to continue an impressive start to his 2018-19 season. He won at the WGC-HSBC Champions in the fall and finished top five in all five starts since. McIlroy’s last outing was a T-5 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
The Northern Irishman hasn’t played too much golf in Texas. He did finish second at the 2013 Texas Open and fourth at the 2016 WGC-Match Play in Austin.
McIlroy did get the competitive juices going at the Driving Relief match in May at Seminole. He and Dustin Johnson beat Matthew Wolff and Rickie Fowler.
Rory’s also shared plenty of his Peloton workouts, so it seems as if he’s kept in good shape per usual.
The next major is the PGA Championship in two months, so there’s no need for anyone to throttle it up too much this week. With that said, I think McIlroy is in good position with plenty of time to study Colonial and will show up rejuvenated.
He’s a big hitter (6th SG off the tee, .718), but knows how to get it done on a variety of courses. His weakness this season has been with the putter (92nd SG, .138). As long as he’s sharp with his irons (3rd SG approach, 1.216) to hit Colonial’s small greens, his reads shouldn’t be too challenging.