The Loop

Missing Links: McIlroy, history and 'one of his...defining moments,' and unhappiness with PGA

August 11, 2014

Stories of interest you might have missed…

"Later, when [Rory] McIlroy is older and we more fully understand who he is in terms of history's great players, this tournament will be considered one of his most sharply defining moments because he dueled into the twilight with a five-time major champion in Mickelson, who left absolutely everything on the golf course," columnist Sally Jenkins writes in the Washington Post.

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(Getty Images photo)

Unhappiness with the PGA of America for its handling of the final round given the weather forecast was vast. "You play a major in Louisville, Kentucky, in August and you are going to get wet, aren't you?…They could have started earlier, three balls off both tees. The forecasting in America is fantastic. They can go back street by back street for goodness sake. They knew it was coming. The last hole was a swimming pool," Colin Montgomerie said in this story by Ewan Murray in the Guardian.

This won't be the last PGA Championship to be played at Valhalla. "With record ticket sales and attendance during the 96th PGA Championship, the Jack Nicklaus-designed venue and the city of Louisville have proven to be major-league hosts for the PGA, the Senior PGA and the Ryder Cup, in the eyes of Peter Bevacqua, the organization's CEO," Justin Sokeland of the Louisville Courier-Journal writes.

"The main thing is right here," [U.S. Ryder Cup captain Tom] Watson said Friday at Valhalla, tapping his chest a couple of times. "Who's got the heart? Who's got the guts to make the 5-footer when the chips are down… That's what I'm looking for." Or, as the headline to Bill Fields' New York Times story says, "Watson Wants His Team to Have a Trait He's Never Lacked: Heart."

"The next Jordan Spieth?" the headline to Bill Nichols' story in the Dallas Morning News asks. Nichols profiles Will Zalatoris, a Plano, Texas, resident who is on a roll heading into the U.S. Amateur this week. Zalatoris, 17, has won the Texas Amateur, the Trans-Mississippi and the U.S. Junior Amateur, while also shooting a non-competitive round of 59.