One of the more memorable major championships I've ever covered came in 2014 when Rory McIlroy took down Phil Mickelson and Rickie Fowler at the PGA Championship at Valhalla. The win was McIlroy's second major of the summer (he also won that year's Open Championship) and the fourth major of his career.
It also almost never happened.
McIlroy got off to a slow start in the final round on Sunday after a rain delay. He made bogey at two of his first six holes before righting the ship with a birdie at the 7th. Then came the shot of the tournament (which might have been an accident). McIlroy sort of necked a 3-wood on the par-5 10th hole, but made eagle from there.
He went on to make two more birdies over the final eight holes to defeat Lefty by one and Fowler and Henrik Stenson by two each.
The most dramatic part of the tournament came on the final hole at Valhalla as McIlroy purposefully played into the Mickelson-Fowler group and hit onto the green just after them to get the round in before it turned dark. Mickelson wasn't exactly pleased about it, but McIlroy went on to make par and take his third consecutive event of the summer.
The entire final round was a worthy denouement for a tournament that produced four stars at the top of the leaderboard at the very end. It was also as much theater as we've seen at a major championship in the last five years and gave us an all-time champ in McIlroy, who became one of just 28 golfers with four or more major victories at the ripe age of 25.
