Mahan Motivated By Desire To Quiet Johnny And Sir Nick!
/Doug Ferguson on Hunter Mahan's impressive win over Rory McIlroy in the Accenture WGC Match Play.
With a little extra motivation he didn't need, Mahan won three straight holes on the front nine to seize control and answered McIlroy's charge with birdies of his own for a 2-and-1 victory.
"Deep down, you wanted to postpone that crowning of the No. 1 player in the world for Rory," Mahan said.
"He'll get there. I mean, he's phenomenal. He's really talented. He'll be No. 1 eventually. But yeah, when you're a player, and I listen to Johnny Miller and Nick Faldo and all those guys, they had him picked to win. And that's what everybody was talking about.
"There was absolute motivation in that."
John Strege on McIlroy admitting a post-Westwood match letdown.
Comparisons to Woods are generally unfair, but one is warranted here. If Tiger were to have dispatched a rival in a semifinal, it would have piqued his desire to bury his opponent in the final. McIlroy won his grudge match with Lee Westwood on Sunday morning, then seemed to let down.
"Yeah, probably," he said when confronted with that possibility. "I knew that was going to be the toughest thing for me. I was getting myself up for that semifinal match. It probably took me a few holes to get going. But that's really not an excuse. I just didn't play well enough when I needed to."
I was a little surprised that no one asked McIlroy after the round about his decision to hit driver on the short par-4 4th after Mahan had laid up. NBC was all over it and that seemed liked the first turning point in Mahan's favor.
Steve Elling noted Mahan's putter change to a PING something, which reader Larry noted made for a huge weekend for the Arizona company which also had winners Huh and Stanford.
Mahan's post round interview transcript.