ShareThisRory McIlroy didn't win the Dubai World Championship or the Race to Dubai (the new name for the European Tour Order of Merit) Sunday. Each of those honors went to Lee Westwood, the 36-year-old English golfer who shot a final-round 64 to win the tournament by six shots over his fellow countryman Ross McGowan. McIlroy finished third in the vent and second in the Race to Dubai.
Okay, so he didn't win the big tournament and the big show that finished in the Dubai desert upon which a course called Earth had been built to host the European Tour's finale. But McIlroy still had a fantastic season. Westwood is 36 and is full of confidence now and could yet win his first major. But McIlroy is only 20, and he's been showing so much as a young golfer that he could mature into a truly great golfer--one for the ages, one for the long run.
Earlier this year, McIlroy, from Northern Ireland, won the Dubai Desert Classic. He had top-10 finishes in the U.S. Open and the PGA Championship. He plays with freedom. Fear? He hasn't shown any yet.
In March, to cite one example of his fearlessness, McIlroy was playing the Honda Classic in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. when he faced a par-four with a bunker down the right side that other golfers didn't challenge.
McIlroy didn't even seem to notice it. His swing seemed too easy to launch a golf ball far enough to carry the bunker, which must have been 300 yards out.
No problem. The ball sailed over the bunker and finished within 30 yards of the green. He was in some fairly high rough, but he knew that would be the case when he took the direct line to the green from the tee. A deep bunker also came between McIlroy and the hole, which was cut just beyond the sand.
Again, no problem. McIlroy went from hitting a massive drive to playing a soft, handsy shot that flipped the ball out of the rough and high over the sand. He nearly holed the shot.
Here's the sort of golfer, then, that fans love to watch. One can only hope that he won't lose his exuberant approach. The game needs golfers who like to go for broke, to appropriate the title of a book about Arnold Palmer. He was just that sort of player, of course.
McIlroy will play the World Cup at the vast Mission Hills complex in Shenzhen, China this week, as partner for fellow Northern Irishman Graeme McDowell. He said after his last round in the Dubai World Championship that he's happy with how things have gone this season. Of course he is.
"I could have topped it all off by winning here and winning The Race to Dubai," McIlroy said. "But I have plenty more years to do that."
He does, but it's not likely he'll need many more years.
(Contact Lorne Rubenstein at rube@sympatico.ca.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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