The Limerick Summary: 2019 WGC-HSBC Champions

Winner: Rory McIlroy

Around the wider world of golf: Several events besides the WGC ended in playoffs this weekend. Colin Montgomerie beat Bernhard Langer at the Champions Tour's Invesco QQQ Championship; and Nelly Korda beat Minjee Lee and Caroline Masson to defend at the Taiwan Swinging Skirts LPGA. On the other tours, Jung-Gon Hwang won the Mynavi ABC Championship on the Japan Golf Tour; Alejandro Tosti won the inaugural Termas de Rio Hondo Invitational on the PGA TOUR Latinoamérica; Brendon Todd won the Bermuda Championship, the PGA Tour's alternate field event; and Muni He went under-par every round for a wire-to-wire win at the 2019 LPGA Q-Series.



I'm not feeling too bad about my Twofer Tuesday picks this week. I had Xander Schauffele (2) to win and Tony Finau (T53) to Top10. I don't know what happened to Tony but Xander forced the third playoff of the week despite being sick most of the time. It's hard to be too disappointed at a performance like that.

• Winners: 3 for 44
• Place well (Top10): 18 for 44 (10 Top5s, 8 more Top10s)
• Overall Top10s: 35 of 88 (20 Top5s, 15 more Top10s)

Of course, Rory got the win. It was impressive despite going to a playoff, because it enabled him to do something that only Tiger has ever done -- win the PLAYERS and a WGC in the same calendar year. For a player who has seemed to struggle with his game and his life both on and off the course over the last few years, Rory seemed very cool, calm and collected as he shot 67-67-67-68 (plus a birdie on the first playoff hole) with a less than perfect game.

It looks like Rory has found the peace he needed to compete again.

Perhaps even more impressive, he has put together a relatively quiet year that resulted in four big wins in less than eight months -- a PLAYERS, which the WGHoF gives the same weight as a major; the Canadian Open, a big tournament in its own right; the PGA TOUR Championship and the FedExCup; and now a WGC. Perhaps Brooks outplayed him in the majors, yet Brooks won only twice in the same time period, the PGA and a WGC of his own.

It will be interesting to see how Rory finishes out his run for the Race to Dubai. Can he add another win in this calendar year? I don't know, but I know he's added yet another Limerick Summary to his 2019 haul... and perhaps given another big name player something to chew on for a while.

Like Tiger, now Rory’s CV
Has a PLAYERS and WGC
In one calendar year.
Is the rival now here
That Brooks Koepka claimed he didn’t see?

The photo came from this page at europeantour.com.