Rory McIlroy was in danger of being winless in 2013. He finally got his golf game back on track and collected his first win of the year in the land down under at the Australian Open.
McIlroy was paired with Adam Scott for the final two rounds at Royal Sydney. With two previous wins in the Australian PGA and the Talisker Masters, Scott was trying to win the “Australian Grand Slam.”
While McIlroy has struggled to find the form that allowed him to win two majors by the age of 24, Scott at 33 years old has had a career season. He became the first Australian to win the Masters in April and won The Barclays in the FedEx Cup playoffs in August.
Scott has moved up to No. 2 in the Official World Golf Rankings and McIlroy has slid down to No. 6 from his No. 1 ranking early in the year.
At the end of 2012 McIlroy earned the money titles on both the PGA and European Tours. He had won the 2012 PGA Championship and two tournaments in the 2012 FedEx Cup playoffs.
McIlroy’s best finish this year was a runner-up at the Valero Texas Open the week prior to the Masters in April. He missed three cuts on the European Tour and finished No. 35 in the Race to Dubai.
He only had one missed cut on the PGA Tour last season, but did have a rather uncomfortable withdrawal from the Honda Classic in March. He was struggling and walked off the golf course citing a sore tooth. It was definitely not the sort of decorum expected from the defending champion and at the time, world No. 1.
McIlroy has been showing signs of improvement in his golf game over the past couple months. He barely made it into the top 60 to qualify for the DP World Championship at the end of the European Tour season.
He posted four solid rounds and finished runner-up in the Korean Open in October, and beat Tiger Woods in an exhibition in China. McIlroy went on to finish T-6 in the WGC-HSBC Champions and T-5 in Dubai.
This win over a quality opponent like Adam Scott should add to McIlroy’s growing confidence and we could very well see him capture more major hardware in 2014.