I guess.

As you know, Congressional was soaked and playing like the John Deere that week.

Winning majors by 8 strokes says a lot about his future potential and his innate talent. Obviously I have no idea if he cares to win 8 majors or whatever. But yeah you need to be hungry to blow away fields. But I don't see reason to believe he won't find his game again. Other than switching clubs and meeting girls, nothing changed about him. It's not like he had a hip replacement or something that is tangibly tied to poor performance.

I know but the course played the same for everyone and none of the dozens of best golfers on the planet got within 7 strokes of him.

David Duval says HI

If Tiger did I'm sure he would have a very good reason.

But if you want everybody just to brush it off if it did happen, then everybody would also give a Tiger win no more publicity as a Snedeker win. Can't have it both ways. You want as much attention as possible when Tiger does well, but then want him treated like everybody else when he screws up.

BO

No he doesn't.

Winning from age 26-29 where you win 1 major by 3 shots isn't very comparable to what Rory did, blowing away the field twice by age 23.

And based on Duval interviews, it seems like dude is an emotional wreck who really hated the spotlight. I don't see that characteristic at all in Rory.

Aside from his stats, what about his mental state, physical state, or actual swing has changed dramatically so such that he'll never regain his past form?

good to see the GOAT with the net-clubhouse-lead

Lol. If Sneds had missed the pro-am I wouldn't have brought it up. But the 2nd biggest name in the game did it in a HUGE event wrt sponsors.

Withdrawing with a toothache

A few weeks ago he admitted to not being able to concentrate on the golf course, despite actively "trying" to.

Just appearing to have an overall lack of drive/motivation at the moment. Doesn't seem like something athletes just "lose" and then regain when they want to.

If that's true (and I think it's a fair assessment) I think a lot of it has to do with what caused that change. I think his ability to get that competitive spirit back is dependent on the cause.

The best case scenario is that he got "bored" after winning twice in easy fashion. Worst case scenario is that he can't get it up to play for a million grand prize when Nike is paying him $50 Million a year just to swing clubs. Somewhere in between are various other possibilities.

But for 15 months he played like a guy who would win 8+ majors, and for 12 months now he's played like a guy who will win 0 or 1. I'd still say his O/U is somewhere between the two. Natural talent trumps everything so I wouldn't start betting against him to be elite again someday soon.

Greats don't do this.

It's kind of ironic that Tiger created the financial situation in golf whereby Rory got so (/too) much early on and he may have killed off a rival who would have caused the biggest problems in recent times (other than Phil) to his quest of being the all-time top Major winner.

Money doesn't drive the greats. If money is affecting Rory, he was never going to be great. DUCY?

Jordan quit basketball in his prime to play minor league baseball. Garth Brooks quit at the top of the Country music peak to tour as some douche with a sole patch named Chris Gaines. Mike Tyson stopped training for fights because he thought he didn't have to, then got upended by a 42-1 dog. Mario Lemieux quit hockey once because he didn't like all the holding non-calls. Sandy Koufax retired from baseball at 31. Barry Sanders same.

All kinds of examples of "greats" getting bored at points in time. Many of them came back to perform at a high level.

We're making it sound like Rory turned into Robert Downey Jr. from Less Than Zero. He almost won a golf tournament this year.

Not sure what your threshold for golf "greatness" is but I don't see how it's out of reach for Rory at this stage in his career. Is Ernie Els great? Phil? Guys like Couples, Furyk, Monty, Westwood, and many others might snap-flip careers with Rory right now even if they never won another tourney.

Maybe he's getting death threats for leaving Chubbie Chandler.

I was pretty much implying this - although if he hadn't got so much so soon he may have had to dig deeper, and may have found something else within himself and also not given way to the obvious distractions in his life over the past few years.

Rory has the Derek Rose syndrome.

They are very talented but don't have the drive of an all-time great. If they both didn't have so much guaranteed money coming in, they'd be forced to unleash their talents on people. They'd end their careers as very great players and maybe hall of famers. But now that they are uber rich for life and have other things they care about, they will fall by the wayside. They might have hot moments due to temporary motivation to work on their game, or just from their raw talent, but they will never have the mental and physical tools to be a Tiger or MJ.

And it's amazing how locked this tourney is.

Rory's got the swing of a 20 year old. Do you really expect him to be swinging the club the same way when he's 30? Does he have the commitment to go through a swing change the way Tiger did? I think Rory ran pretty hot to win those two majors. The thing I've seen out of him that was most impressive was that he bounced back from the Master's blow up the way he did.

I remember when Tiger went through a slump and he posted his worst round ever... a 76!! LOL. That's the difference between Tiger and everyone else. Tiger is ALWAYS there. And even Phil to some extent. It's like they're always a factor. If Rory wasn't Rory, you wouldn't know him any different from Marc Turnesa this year.

There were a couple of years before the hot 15 months that weren't super special, just FYI. He's had more bad years than good, although to be fair he's still a kid.

I don't think it's a lock that he's done or whatever, I just think there are questions that weren't there a year ago. Can't putt, lack of motivation, I gues we will see.

If you can't see that Rory is more a Phil Mickelson type (runs hot and cold) than a Tiger Woods type (keeps his level up most of the time) I don't know what to tell you. If you put Rory's major over/under at anything less than 5 you are idiot. The kid is a born winner and natural talent. Simple as that. His accomplishments at his age are nothing short of astounding and put him into a category today that not 5 other golfers in history can match. (and 5 is a stretch)

He's only 24 and by age 23 he'd won two majors both in record fashion. At 23 Tiger had won one professional major. People just need to shut up and let the kid play.

BO

The age thing is so bogus. He's been playing professionally full time for 5 years. His record, outside of the one hot stretch, isn't very impressive.

You guys seem mad though, so you've got that going for you.

Mad lol. We are pointing out facts. Nothing mad about it. Sounds like you could be mad though. Mad as in nuts for thinking Rory is a flash in the pan. Stick with that though because it will be entertaining.

How many golfers win 2 majors in a hot stretch? How many golfers under 30 currently have 2 majors? How many golfers in the last 50 years won 2 majors before 30?

It's possible he could be a flash in the pan, but even if he is, what he's done in that stretch will be talked about for many years.

BO

Care to point out a single fact in your post? Looks like some random assertions with a dash of opinion.

Anyway...Carve out 2012 and take a look at his stats.

Here's a preview: 53 starts, 2 wins on the PGA Tour. 110 starts, 3 wins on the LOLeuro Tour.

GOATish