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ROUND three of a golf tournament may well be known as ‘moving day’ although at the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship Rory McIlroy stood still to effectively end his chances of starting the year with a title that has eluded him.
Instead, it was the less-heralded of the 2014 duo of European Major winners, namely Martin Kaymer, who was left way out in front, it was assumed to continue his dominance of this event.
McIlroy has come as close to winning as some of his putts were to dropping, finishing second on three occasions in the four years preceding the 2015 edition, yet he would have had to play some exceptional golf to unseat the imperious German.
Indeed, it was all eyes on Kaymer who holds the record for the lowest winning score of 24-under, set when he last won in Abu Dhabi back in 2011, the third of his successes here.
Everything was going according to plan as he secured three birdies in the first four holes to extend his bogey-free streak to an astonishing 47 holes and his lead in the competition to an incredible 10 shots. With 14 holes to play, it was, in the words of the BBC, Kaymer versus Kaymer.
However, what followed was one of the largest implosions ever witnessed. Kaymer did not just land a few punches on himself, it was a knockout!
The first bogey was a surprise but then a double and triple followed in a run that sounded more like the commentator was at the bar with Miguel Angel Jimenez.
It was left to the relatively unknown Frenchman, 22-year-old Gary Stal, to claim his first ever title and move rapidly up the rankings from his current position of 357. With this victory he now secures an invite to the prestigious WGC-Bridgestone Invitational tournament and his European Tour card until 2018 and becomes the youngest winner of this event, overtaking Kaymer himself.
McIlroy went on a charge and came so close, his closing round of 66 leaving him one shot off the lead and ruing those missed putts on Saturday, making him the ‘bridesmaid’ here for the fourth time.
At least he had the relative consolation of having failed to win as a result of missed putts rather than a rules infringement, which has happened to him twice in Abu Dhabi.
He also secured his first ever hole-in-one as a professional, which was the third of the week.
The Northern Irishman took a nine iron at the 177-yard 15th in his second round, pitching the ball a yard in front of the flag before it rolled into the hole. He hit his first ace as a nine-year-old, also with a nine iron, although that hole measured only 106 yards in his native Holywood.
Much has been made this week about McIlroy’s goals for the year following his revelation that he writes them on the back of his first airplane boarding card of the year and then keeps them in his wallet as a reminder.
The hole-in-one was not one of those goals, although he did remain penalty-free! Despite finishing the year as the No 1-ranked golfer of 2014 by a healthy margin, McIlroy did not achieve all that he wanted to last year having aimed to win six titles on tour and ‘only’ achieving four (although his two Majors doubled his target). That he ‘failed’ was perhaps due to off-course distractions, which loom again in February.
It is then that he will have to give evidence in his acrimonious and well-documented court case against former agents, Horizon Sports Management. With the case expected to last up to eight weeks it will be interesting to see how this affects his playing schedule that includes the Dubai Desert Classic next week.
McIlroy will be aiming to put on his first green jacket, the traditional prize for winning the first Major of the year, the Masters at Augusta. This would complete his career Grand Slam putting him level with the likes of Ben Hogan, Gary Player and Gene Sarazen. Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods have completed this equivalent on three occasions, the latter of which did hold all four at the same time.
The only person to have ever won all four Majors in the same year was Bobby Jones, the co-founder of the Masters in 1934, who did so in 1930 when the British Amateur title was considered to be the fourth.
