McIlroy seals record-breaking Quail Hollow win

Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland poses with the trophy after his win at the Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina. (AFP)

AFP/Charlotte, North CarolinaRory McIlroy underscored his status as the best golfer in the world on Sunday as he put the finishing touches to a record-shattering triumph in the US PGA Tour Wells Fargo Championship. The world number one fired five birdies in a three-under par 69, following up his stunning course-record 61 on Saturday to finish with a 21-under par total of 267 -- seven strokes in front of Webb Simpson and Patrick Rodgers who shared second on 274. The 26-year-old from Northern Ireland shattered the previous 72-hole tournament record set by Anthony Kim in 2008 by five strokes. He became the first two-time winner of the event, in which he claimed the first of his 11 US PGA Tour titles back in 2010. “Everything is firing on all cylinders for me,” said McIlroy, who will now head across the Atlantic for the European Tour’s PGA Championship at Wentworth and the Irish Open at Royal County Down. McIlroy shook off a three-putt bogey at the second hole. By the time he bogeyed 17 he had built a seven-shot lead. He birdied two par-fives on the front nine, the fifth and seventh, and birdied the 12th, 14th and 16th coming in. At 12, he hit his approach shot 132 yards to two feet and tapped in for birdie. He moved to 21-under with his birdie at 14 and at 16 landed his approach shot three feet from the pin and made that. “The golf course sets up perfectly for me,” said McIlroy, who rose to third in the US PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup standings. “With my length and the way I’m driving it, it’s a big advantage around here and it showed this week.” Simpson started the day four shots behind McIlroy and closed with an even par 72. Any hopes he had of catching McIlroy ended with a double bogey at the par-three sixth. “He’s our best player right now,” Simpson said of McIlroy. “I wish more than anything I could have shot a couple-under on the front to make it more exciting. “Just didn’t have it today,” he added. Rodgers, playing on a sponsor’s exemption, briefly moved within three strokes of McIlroy’s lead after an eagle at the 10th and birdie at 11 but faded late in a 68. He was in the water at 17 en route to a double bogey, unable to get the solo second place finish he needed to earn exemption for the rest of the PGA Tour season. However, Rodgers did earn a berth in next week’s Colonial. “It has given me a lot of confidence moving forward,” he said. Gary Woodland, Robert Streb and Phil Mickelson tied for fourth on 12-under 276.McIlroy allays burnout fearsRory McIlroy may be battling fatigue when he continues his five-week trans-Atlantic playing schedule in Europe over the next fortnight but the world number one has shrugged off any talk of burnout ahead of next month’s U.S. Open. After his runaway seven-stroke victory, McIlroy plans to get as much rest as possible before he starts the defence of his BMW PGA Championship title this coming week. “I’m going to try to get a lot of sleep between now and teeing it up on Thursday at Wentworth,” the Briton told reporters before jumping on a private jet for an overnight flight to London for the European Tour’s flagship event. McIlroy will also contest the Irish Open, before taking two weeks off prior to the U.S. Open at Chambers Bay in Washington State. The 26-year-old has never seen the course but scoffed at a recent statement by U.S. Golf Association executive director Mike Davis that only a couple of practice rounds were required to have a chance of winning. “What’s Mike Davis’s handicap?” McIlroy asked Reuters when informed of the official’s comment. “I’m going to go up a little early... so I’ll probably play three practice rounds. It’s a bit of an unknown, so you have to prepare, but I think you can fall into the trap of trying to over prepare. “If you don’t go out and execute, all that preparation doesn’t mean anything, so I’d rather have my game in good shape going in there and play practice rounds the way I usually would. I think that will do well for me.” If McIlroy continues to play as well as he did in Charlotte, he will be tough to beat no matter how well or otherwise he knows the course. He used a magnificent display of long and accurate driving to plunder Quail Hollow and shatter the tournament record by five shots with his 21-under-par 267 total. When McIlroy is on his game, he can demolish a course like nobody else. He can work the ball either way with his driver, and he hits it so far that almost every par-five is reachable in two shots. Asked whether he was surprised to shoot 21-under, he said: “It’s out there if you don’t make many mistakes. “Realistically, with someone my length off the tee, you should be making six birdies out there—the four par-fives and two drivable par-fours. That’s six birdies a day, 24-under.”