Why Rory McIlroy Dominates Quail Hollow

Why Rory McIlroy Dominates Quail Hollow

Okay, correct me if I’m wrong here, but I don’t think we need a big long intro for Rory Mroy, do we? He just won the Masters. You saw it, I saw it. It was tremendous. Never, ever, ever give up. The monkey that was on his back for a decade is slinking back off to whatever monkey jungle he came from. And now, with the career slam under his belt, he is headed to his favorite course in the universe, Quail Hollow. and there he’s going to try to bag his sixth major at the PGA Championship. Rory is otherworldly in Charlotte, but our goal today is to figure out why. So, let’s start with this. He has won four times of this course at what’s now called the truest championship. He made one other playoff in 2012 when Ricky Fowler beat him. And even though winning is the most basic stat, it does lead to an interesting question. How unique is it for a guy to win four times on the same course? Looking at this century, where at least one of the wins came after 2000, it’s a pretty short list. Phil Mickelson won at Pebble five times. Davis Love the third took down the Heritage five times. And then Rory with his four wins at Charlotte. So, he’s in pretty elite company here. Now, am I forgetting anyone? Oh, yeah. Tiger Woods. He won five times at Augusta, five times at Memorial, five times at the BMW, seven times at the Cadillac, seven times at Tory, eight if you count the US Open there, eight times at the Bridgestone, and eight at Bay Hill. We get it, Tiger. You’re very, very good. Still, Rory’s four wins at Quail are historically very impressive, and he’s only 35. He can easily get two or three more. Beyond the wins, you have the nuts and bolts career stats. His scoring average there is 69.48, almost a full shot better than anyone else. He’s 55 strokes further under par than any other human being. He’s been here 14 times. He has 10 top 10s and only one miscut. But now, let’s get down and dirty with some real numbers. As you can see on PGAour.com, Quail Hollow is one of the three top courses in terms of how crucial it is to drive the ball well. And a huge part of that obviously is length. This year it’s the sixth longest course on tour. Rory himself has called it a big boy course and that’s probably an understatement, but he loves that. The fact is nobody has ever driven the ball better than Rory. He is number one in strokes gained off the tea this year. And literally every year the guy has been eligible, he’s been sixth place or better off the tea out of hundreds of players. That is astounding excellence and astounding consistency. So if you’re going to tell me that Quail is a place where it pays to drive like a golden god, then yeah, obviously that’s going to be a huge part of the story of why Rory is so good here. Okay, we’ve gone as far as we can on our own. Let’s bring in the cavalry. Let’s call in our Canadian buddies Matt and Will Cersine. These guys are the brains behind the excellent site Data Golf. And the brothers Cerse confirmed the importance of driving with this nifty course fit tool. As you can see from the green Pentagon, which is Quail, and the dotted line below it, which is the tour average, it’s super important here to drive well, way more than the average. Then they dropped a bomb on us. Yeah, you’d expect Rory to be great here because of his skill, because of the course profile, but it turns out he does even better than that, as in significantly better. This course history tool takes a second to understand, but what it shows is that through 50 rounds of quail, Rory’s gaining almost a full stroke more than he should against his expected performance. Think of this as strokes gained against yourself. And if you break that down by its component parts, half of that game is off the tea. In other words, yeah, you expect him to be ridiculous at driving on this course, but he’s actually ridiculous and then some. And he’s even a little better than normal on approach. We might have an explanation for that last one, by the way, the approach. And it’s an important concept to understand. This chart from the data boys shows that at Quill there are way more approaches than average from 175 to 225 yards out, meaning more long irons. And as you see here, Rory has always gained more strokes the farther away he is from the hole. And that’s true from both the fairway and the rough. And it’s pretty dramatic. He’s actually below average compared to the tour from 50 to 100 yards. Here, I can’t help but think of number 13 at Augusta this year. But he gets better as he goes farther away. And what the data golf guys emphasized to me is that that number 074, it doesn’t look like much, but that’s per shot. And it’s actually massive when you play it out over time. Let’s see how this looks on the actual course. And for these stats, we can thank Austin Bratton at the PGA Tour. For just a sample of why Rory is so good, it turns out there are seven specific holes where he has the most strokes gained over his career, more than any other player. That’s almost half the course, which says something. And they come in two stretches, 15 to 17 at the end. But I want to look at the first stretch, holes 7 through 10, where he is a lifetime plus 47 strokes gained. That’s first by more than double second place, Jason Day. And let’s look at number seven in particular where he has 18 strokes gained on one single hole. Seven is not too complicated. It’s just a long pretty straight par five, but it shows how these two skills with the driver and the long irons combined to give Rory such an advantage. We’re going to take you back to 2013 third round 15 mph winds blowing in Charlotte. And as you see from this chart, that day he pumped it out there to 319. That yellow dot is him. Now, not everyone can do that on a windy day, but other people can. As you see, he’s not quite alone. Nick Wattney here even outdrives him. But not everybody can hit long irons like he does. Look at the chart from the second shot, the approach. That little yellow dot there is him from 193 yds. He puts it to 5 ft. One of only two eagles on the day and the other was a chip in. And to highlight how massive long irons are on number seven, he has gained 16 strokes T green in his career, but less than six just off the tee. So the bulk of his gains are coming from these long irons. By the way, if you’re curious on which holes he gains the most just off the tee, that’s number eight and number 16. Really short par4 and a really long one. So keep an eye on those. PGA Championship week. Now we turn to number nine. And it’s another long par4. And last year gives us a great illustration of how he can dominate this course. On Saturday, a 319 yd drive left him 181 to the green. You see that red dot in front? That’s him right in that long approach sweet spot where he’s so much better than anyone. He hit to 10 ft. He made the putt. On Sunday, the approach was only 166 yds. There he is in red again, but still plenty long. Once again, he hit to 10 ft. And once again, he converted the birdie. You want to guess how many birdies there were total on those holes over the weekend? Six. Six birdies on number nine in two days. And Rory had two of them. So, you can see that hitting long irons means so much. And if you’re looking for the really brief version of why he’s so great here, it’s because unlike many tour events, there is no wedge competition at Quail. And that suits Rory just fine because the farther you are from the hole, the more his advantages stack up. He’s a sniper. He wants to be a mile away from his enemy. Okay, let’s zoom back out. Let’s look beyond the numbers. It’s not just that Rory has won here or accumulated some incredible stats, which he has. It’s that he has put together some really truly mind-blowing rounds. And I don’t think you can underrate that. Rory’s ability to just go off without warning. Last year, if you remember, he started Sunday down a stroke to Xander Schoffley and went out and shot a 65 with a 32 on the back nine. No, Eagle the Maroy. And that included a double bogey at 18. It was one of the most thoroughly dominant rounds of the entire year. And it wasn’t even his best at Quail Hollow. In 2015, he set the course record there with a 61, which on this course, it’s like shooting a 56 on your easier tour tracks. And that wasn’t even his best round at Quail Hollow. For that, we have to go back to 2010 and Rory’s first ever PGA Tour victory. It happened 2 days before his 21st birthday. Look how young and innocent he is. He trails by three heading into Sunday. Starts getting it going at those holes he loves. 789. Birdie, birdie, birdie. Birdie’s 11. Then he gets to 14. It’s still kind of close, but he finishes birdie. Eagle birdie par birdie drops a 40-footer on 18 to cap it off. And as for his opponents, well, as they say in Charlotte, bless their hearts. He shatters the course record with a 62 to crush everyone. Now, as I said, he later shot 61. So why is this the best? Strokes gain, baby. Things were tough that day at Quail. And as I found out in 2019 from Mark Brody, by strokes gained, this is the best Sunday round ever played. And because he won, I personally consider it the best PGA Tour round ever played. And by the way, I wrote that in 2019, so I’m not just saying that today. Now, what’s so cool about all this in my mind is that the stats don’t quite account for everything. Rory should be very good at Quail Hollow, but he shouldn’t be this good. That’s where the intangibles, the magic, comes in. The president of Quail Hollow, Johnny Harris, is Rory’s good friend. They have been for a while. It so happens that he celebrates his birthday at Quail most years. And he said that he feels relaxed and comfortable in a way that he doesn’t at any other venue. It just feels right. That doesn’t mean he’s going to win the PGA Championship. He was here in 2017, too, and Rory finished tied for 22nd. Justin Thomas said, “Thank you very much, Rory. But there is something special happening in the ether when Rory steps on this course. Some secret quantum reaction that transcends numbers. And you may have noticed it’s been a pretty special year already for this guy. So, is he going to win? The realistic answer to that question is maybe. Yeah, he’s got a good chance. But somewhere just beyond reality, and not to go full Ben Crunch on you here, but if you’re a big believer in fate, who else can it be?

No player has had better success at Quail Hollow than Rory McIlroy….but why? Golf Digest’s Shane Ryan takes a deeper look at the data that reveals the answer.

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Host: Shane Ryan
Producer: Will Fullerton
Video Editor: Rich Tanner
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