US PGA analysis: Rory McIlroy's 'home' advantage as he seeks to end major drought at Oak Hill
It's sometimes been said that Rory McIlroy arrives at a tournament a little under the radar, but it's not true.
He's turned up with his game in a funk, he's been fifth or sixth or seventh in the betting, but under the radar? That's not a place the biggest name in the PGA Championship field is ever allowed to go.
He'd like to, no doubt, and he's tried to. After missing the cut at the Masters, McIlroy withdrew from the RBC Heritage, forfeiting millions of dollars. That decision became the talk of Hilton Head as if to prove once again that to escape is harder for him than it is for most. Justin Thomas, who defends his title at Oak Hill, spoke once about how much admiration he has for McIlroy given the spotlight under which he plays.
When it comes to the week ahead and the 105th PGA Championship, two of the previous 104 having been won by McIlroy, some might argue that his poor spring lowers expectation. He's missed the cut and then finished 47th in his last two tournaments, both as favourite. Add another missed cut in The PLAYERS and he's made a bad start to the biggest events of 2023.
And then, as is always the case with him, something will bring us all back to McIlroy's reality. That something will be his ties to the area – and his Oak Hill membership.
Rochester, New York is the hometown of his wife, Erica Stoll, and he describes it as 'almost a second home' (almost presumably meaning that it's actually his third, behind Northern Ireland and Florida). He's been there on several occasions through the years, popping in to play Oak Hill both before and since it was restored by Andrew Green, something else we'll hear a lot about in the coming days.
Green's significant changes to the course will help McIlroy. In 2013, he arrived here as defending champion and spoke fondly of this famous venue, yet in highlighting the fact that driver wasn't often needed, he revealed just why it wasn't really a course for him. Jason Dufner and Jim Furyk dominated, Henrik Stenson just behind them, players who play positional golf rather than the powerful kind McIlroy had put to use at Kiawah Island 12 months earlier.
Now, at close to 7,400 yards and with scores of trees removed, Oak Hill should be less a game of draughts, more a game of chess. There will be options for a player like McIlroy, both off the tee and when faced with a recovery shot. There ought to be more medium irons and fewer short ones, while Andy Johnson of The Fried Egg reckons we'll see a number of pitches and difficult bunker shots. That's one area of the McIlroy game which remains vastly underrated.
The rough, made lush through spring, ought to play more into the hands of those who hit the ball a long way. So might the weather, with cold mornings and cool afternoons elongating the course, just as rain will should it arrive as expected. Oak Hill's hard-to-hit fairways might just be a little more receptive and anyone seeking to win the driving battle by sacrificing distance for accuracy will struggle to win the war.
Whether McIlroy's handful of autumn scouting missions benefit him is unclear, but the changes to the course are all but guaranteed to. Oak Hill's 'sympathetic restoration', as Green puts it, has simultaneously brought back the vision of Donald Ross while bringing the course forward into the present day, somewhere to offer an appropriate challenge to the sport as it is now, for better or worse. You simply must drive the ball well.
It is a good place for a golfer like McIlroy, who last arrived at a major on the back of a missed cut in April 2022, then finished second in the Masters. He's never off the radar, never without hope.