Brendon de Jonge has suggested what he finds so surprising about Rory McIlroy as the Northern Irishman prepares to make his return to the Memorial Tournament this week.
McIlroy surprised many, not least Jack Nicklaus, when he decided to not play at Muirfield Village this time last year. The 37-year-old was enduring a slump after winning The Masters for the first time and completing the Career Grand Slam.
However, McIlroy appears to be in a much better place this time around. And it will be fascinating to see how he performs at Jack’s Place over the coming days.
McIlroy has only played in two tournaments since his second victory at Augusta National.
Brendon de Jonge baffled that Rory McIlroy has never won the Memorial Tournament
Unfortunately, history does not appear to be on his side this week. In fact, Muirfield Village is the only PGA Tour venue McIlroy has played at least 10 times and never won at.
And speaking on 5 Clubs, Brendon de Jonge admitted that he cannot quite understand why McIlroy has not been able to get across the line at the Memorial.
“This is very, very surprising. So, actually, the first time I ever played with Rory was at Memorial,” he said.
“It was the third round of Memorial 2010. We were on the first tee, and I’ll never forget this. David Feherty walks over to me and he says, ‘you’re about to watch the best player that you’ve ever seen’. And I’d heard of Rory McIlroy, obviously, he’d done some stuff in Europe already, but what I saw that day, I thought to myself, I was like, this guy’s going to win around this golf course five, six times easily because it should be made for his game.
“And you start thinking about where Rory’s had his biggest success. Quail Hollow to me is the golf course on the PGA Tour that is most similar to Memorial. Augusta, very similar to Muirfield village. So it doesn’t really make sense that Rory hasn’t really contended. No. Obviously, we talk about Rory McIlroy here, he still does have five top 10s at the event, but very, very surprised that he hasn’t had a lot of good chances to win there.”
How Rory McIlroy has performed at Muirfield Village across his career
McIlroy finished inside the top 10 on both of his first two appearances at the Memorial Tournament.
However, there has only been one top 10 across his last six visits to Ohio. He also missed the cut back in 2019.
Muirfield Village is known as one of the most thorough tests on the PGA Tour schedule. Nevertheless, McIlroy will be disappointed that he has only broken 70 in two of his last 22 rounds at the course.
He will be desperate to get across the line at least once in his career. But securing that victory is clearly a lot easier said than done.
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