2012: The Year of Rory

By Jim O'Shea

(AP Photo)

In the Chinese calendar, 2012 is the Year of the Dragon. In the PGA Tour calendar? Yes, it’s 2012, but it’s also the Year of Rory.

Rory McIlroy began his season in the same place he ended it, The United Arab Emirates. The difference between the beginning and the end? Not much, just one place higher on the leaderboard, which is the most he could move up after a 2^nd place finish in the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship in January. Enough about the beginning and the end. Let’s get to the part that matters, the rest of the year, which included the four majors, the FedEx Cup Playoffs, and the Race to Dubai.

After his fast start at the Abu Dhabi tournament, Rory continued the great play by not finishing outside the top five in any tournament until the Masters, which ended on April 8. So, the time it took for Rory to finish a tournament outside the top five was more than two, yes two, months. During that span, Rory competed in five tournaments, finishing first, second (twice), third, and fifth. I would call that a nice warmup for the Masters.

Even though Rory didn’t compete so well in the Masters, finishing tied for 40^th, he came back a month later at the Wells Fargo Championship and placed second. Now that’s the Rory we all know.

But, over the next three months as summer came and went so did Rory’s golf game. He finished better than 60^th only twice in the three month span from early May to early August.

But just as Rory’s game left him over the summer, it came back in August as fall approached. Rory tied for fifth at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational in early August. Finally, after a long three months, Rory appeared like his self again, and he didn’t let go of it. A week later at the fourth major of the year, the PGA Championship, Rory stormed past the rest of the field en route to an eight stroke victory. Rory would’ve won if only his first three rounds counted, where he shot seven under as opposed to the five under second place finish.

Now that Rory proved himself in a major, it was time for the FedEx Cup Playoffs. Even though he struggled in the first event of the playoffs, the Barclays where he finished tied for 24^th, he came back in the next two events, winning both of them. And these two events weren’t a month apart or a couple of weeks apart, they were in consecutive weeks.

So, Rory had now won three of his past four tournaments and it was time for the final FedEx Cup event, the Tour Championship. Rory finished tied for 10^th, which after his last two events sounds awful, but with the top 30 players in the FedEx points standings competing that is pretty good. The only reason that Rory didn’t win the FedEx Cup is the controversial rule by the PGA Tour that resets the points before the Tour Championship so a win by a player in the top five guarantees that player the FedEx Cup.

Rory shrugged it off by leading the European team to a Ryder Cup victory the next week. He won three of his five events here, including in his first event in foursomes against Brandt Snedeker who won the FedEx Cup. Revenge? I believe so. But this was not the most important victory by Rory. That came on the final day in singles against the then-undefeated Keegan Bradley. If Keegan would’ve won this match, the Americans would’ve taken back the Cup, but Rory stopped that from happening.

Rory also stopped anyone on the European Tour from taking the tour’s championship from him. The FedEx Cup of the European Tour is the Race to Dubai, and unlike the FedEx Cup, Rory won the Race to Dubai by winning the last tournament and finishing in the top three in three of the last four. With this victory came not one trophy, but two, one for the tournament victory and one for the season’s victory.

What a year. With his domination on both the PGA and European Tours, Rory finished first on both tours’ money lists. Another first came in the Official World Golf Ranking where Rory is the cream of the crop.

Yes, he is the cream of the crop, but with all the money earned, I don’t think he will be growing crops any time soon. Instead, he will probably be trying to find a spot in his house for all of his trophies.

2012 was indeed the Year of Rory.