Jordan Spieth needed about 10 months to change the Rory McIlroy Era.
When McIlroy tapped in to win the PGA Championship in darkness at Valhalla Golf Club in August of 2014, he was on top of the game. The superstar from Northern Ireland had claimed his fourth career major and second in a row after winning the British Open at Royal Liverpool a month earlier. He joined Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus and Bobby Jones as the only players in the last century to win four majors before turning 26, delivering on the potential he’d shown when, as an 18-year-old amateur, he was tied for third after the first round of the 2007 British Open.
But along came the 21-year-old Spieth, winning the Masters in early April for his first major. He followed that up by winning the U.S. Open at Chambers Bay in June. Then McIlroy injured his ankle while playing soccer with friends and gave up a chance to defend his British Open title. Spieth missed a playoff by one shot, recording a top-five finish while narrowly missing a chance to extend his quest for a Grand Slam.
Just like that, a new era began.
“We live in such a world that everything’s so reactionary, and everything happens so quickly,” McIlroy said before the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits in August. “A year ago, after I won this tournament, it was the Rory Era. And then Jordan wins the Masters, and it’s the Jordan Era. And eras last about 6 months these days instead of 20 years.”
So now — with apologies to Jason Day, the recent winner of the 2015 PGA Championship — it’s the Rory and Jordan Era. Do you like Spieth, now 22, the up-and-comer who seems to have an uncanny ability to make critical putts? Or do you favor McIlroy, the veteran at 26, with his athleticism and remarkable power?
With the BMW Championship — the third leg of the four-event FedEx Cup playoffs — set to start at Conway Farms Golf Club in Lake Forest on Thursday, Sept. 17, a comparison of golf’s two new leaders is in order. Because like it or not, McIlroy and Spieth are getting the golf world ready for the eventual departure of stars like Woods and Phil Mickelson.
Woods and Mickelson “are like Arnie [Palmer] and Jack [Nicklaus],” 2016 U.S. Ryder Cup captain Davis Love III said at the PGA Championship. “Eventually, the guys are going to chase them out of the game, like we did to Arnie and Jack. You get older, and you have to move on.”
On the tee
Spieth didn’t miss a beat when asked before the PGA Championship if he was envious of any specific part of McIlroy’s game.
“Sure, I wish I could hit it as far as he does,” Spieth said. “When he’s driving the ball well, just like Dustin [Johnson], just like Bubba [Watson], when they’re hitting the ball straight with as far as they do, they’re playing a different golf course.”
The 5-foot-10, 160-pound McIlroy averages 306.4 yards off the tee in 2015, much better than the 292.5-yard mark posted by the 6-1, 185-pound Spieth. McIlroy also hits 68.07 percent of his fairways on the PGA Tour, a number that bests Spieth’s 63.04 percent.
McIlroy hasn’t hit more than 60 percent of his fairways on the PGA Tour since 2011. He averaged 310.5 yards off the tee in 2014, but only hit 59.93 percent of fairways.
“From a driving standpoint, I felt like I drove the ball great last year, just as I have this year,” McIlroy said. “The fractions and the percentages of improvement at this level of the game are so small, so you’re always trying to just inch your way up and inch your way up and always trying to look at some ways to improve.”
McIlroy’s power is enough to convince many that his ceiling is higher than that of his peers.
“McIlroy just has that amazing power and aggressive nature,” 1996 British Open champion Tom Lehman said back in May. “He’s a lot like Arnold [Palmer] in the way he plays. He just goes for it.
“McIlroy, to me, is clearly the best of the best.”
Advantage: McIlroy
Approaching the green
How does a player like Spieth combat McIlroy’s prodigious length?
“There’s not much I can do about it right now except try to hit my approaches even closer and make a few more putts,” Spieth said.
Spieth is hitting 68.06 percent of greens in regulation in 2015, a number McIlroy has actually bested (71.41 percent). But while McIlroy hits the ball 35 feet, 9 inches from the hole on average, Spieth is two feet closer at 33-9. He’s especially good from 200-225 yards, with an average of 33-11 that ranks second on the PGA Tour.
Some of McIlroy’s approach stats are actually a little worse than they were in 2014, but at the PGA Championship he said that was somewhat by design.
“My proximity to the hole isn’t quite as good, but I think that’s because … I’ve tried to stay a lot more patient on the golf course in terms of when to attack and when not to,” McIlroy said.
Advantage: Even
Putting
There may be no better stat to indicate why Spieth has broken out in 2015 than his make percentage from 20-25 feet. Spieth is rolling in 26.56 percent of his putts from that range this year, the best mark on the PGA Tour.
“He’s making more than one out of four,” said Zach Johnson, who won the 2015 British Open. “That’s a joke.”
Spieth is also best on the PGA Tour in putting average (1.7), one-putt percentage (43.89 percent), and putts per round (27.88). McIlroy trails by a significant margin in all three categories.
Advantage: Spieth
Intangibles
Spieth is known for using the pronoun “we” in post-round interviews to refer to himself and caddie Michael Greller, often while describing victories or fantastic shots. It’s a practice that has earned him a reputation as a team player and helped make him a media darling.
“Michael’s with me on the course, he’s the one that’s a part of each decision that we make as far as preparing for what we do,” Spieth said. “I’m the one hitting the shots and hitting the putts and getting the credit, I guess, but at the same time I believe that this is a — we’re a brand, we’re a company … we’re competing together all for the same goal.”
Both Spieth and McIlroy are prone to displays of disgust on the course — Spieth tends to yell at himself after poor shots (“Jordan!”), while McIlroy memorably threw his 3 iron into a pond at the WGC-Cadillac Championship in March. But Spieth seems to recover faster. His bounce-back rate — a statistic that shows the percent of holes completed over par followed immediately by a hole completed under par — is 28.25 percent, fifth on the PGA Tour. McIlroy is at 13.75 percent.
“I think what sets [Spieth] apart, at least in my opinion, is the intangibles,” Zach Johnson said. “If I knew what they were, I’d try to implement them, but it’s like an innate ability to just get it done.
“We’ve seen it in the majors, he comes back with a round or two that you’re just like, man, you think he’s out of it, and all of a sudden he surfaces again. So he has an ability to just get the ball in the hole.”
Advantage: Spieth
Head to head
Spieth took the No. 1 spot in the World Golf Ranking from McIlroy after the PGA Championship, and the two have toggled between Nos. 1 and 2 ever since, with McIlroy reclaiming the top spot ahead of the BMW Championship. Both are in good position to win the FedEx Cup, with Spieth No. 2 in the rankings behind Day and McIlroy No. 17 despite skipping the first event.
This appears to be a friendly rivalry for now, even with Spieth joking, “No, we hate each other, it’s very challenging to talk to him,” after being paired with McIlroy at the PGA Championship.
“I’ve been friends with Rory since maybe middle to end of the first year that I was out here, when we first played together and whatnot,” Spieth said. “Obviously have a lot of respect. His game is extremely exciting. Watching him drive the golf ball is just inspirational. It’s unbelievable when he is hitting his driver good. I would argue there’s nobody like it when he’s hitting his driver good. And really the entirety of his game.”
For now, McIlroy holds a wide lead in victories with 11 on the PGA Tour and 11 on the European Tour to Spieth’s five PGA Tour wins. He also has four majors to Spieth’s two. So who’s the best?
“I mean, if you were to go by this year, you would have to say Jordan,” McIlroy said at the PGA Championship. “I would say if you go over the last two years, I would say it’s probably a toss up between Jordan and myself. That’s a hard one.”
John Borneman co-hosts a weekly golf podcast called Teeing Off. Find it on Twitter (@Teeing__Off) or at facebook.com/teeingoffpodcast and on iTunes.
Twitter: @John_Borneman