The Loop

Missing Links: Rory McIlroy, the $83.5 million man? And 'the Rory Epoch dawned'

August 13, 2014

Stories of interest you might have missed…

Rory McIlroy, the $83.5 million man? That is the figure Ben Rumsby of the Telegraph came up with in annual earnings potential for McIlroy in the wake of his fourth major championship. That would put him in Tiger Woods territory.

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It's not a given, as the headline in this Independent story suggests, that the Tiger era is over ("Farewell to Tiger Era as Rory takes command at Valhalla"), but, as writer Karl McGinty notes accurately, "the Rory Epoch dawned" with his victory in the PGA Championship on Sunday.

Herbert Kohler Jr. "will go down as one of the most important figures in Wisconsin golf history," Gary D'Amato writes in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel of the man who gave us Whistling Straits, site of the 2015 PGA Championship. His legacy won't end there, either. "You're going to see our company very active in the game of golf around the world for many years," his son David said.

Is Lexi Thompson, who won the Kraft Nabisco Championship in April, poised to win several major championships? "Probably the bigger keys to Thompson's first major… are how she's worked on fine-tuning her short game and how she's upped her fitness level. But perhaps that little extra I know I can win big events' mindset will be a factor for Thompson this week," writes ESPNw's Mechelle Voepel heading into this week's LPGA Championship and with the LPGA's fifth major, the Evian Championship, on the horizon.

Marlene Hagge-Vossler, one of the founding members of the LPGA, is on board with the tour joining forces with the PGA of America in 2015 with the KPMG Women's PGA Championship replacing the LPGA Championship. "We needed, always did need and still need all the help we can get," Hagge-Vossler told the Desert Sun's Larry Bohannan. "I see only positive things coming from it."