How good is Rory? He’s just broken a seemingly unbreakable record
Rory McIlroy has written yet another slice of golf history – this time in the world rankings
He may be one of the most successful European golfers of this generation but there still seems to be plenty of people who underestimate the Northern Irishman’s talent. Rory McIlroy is barely into his 30s and has a career several players combined would envy.
Winner of four major championships, he joined an elite club when winning his third before the age of 25. Only Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods had done this before, and Jordan Spieth since.
In total there have been 27 professional wins, including those four majors as well as three WGCs and a Players Championship.
On three occasions McIlroy has been crowned the best golfer in Europe winning the season-long Race to Dubai and he has also been voted the PGA Tour Player of the Year the same number of times.
Add to all of this that he has been an integral part of the last five European Ryder Cup teams and it seems crazy that anybody still questions whether he is really that good.
Well, this week McIlroy passes another milestone and this one clearly demonstrates just how outstanding his career has been to date.
The self-titled world ranking guru who goes by the name Nosferatu has calculated that McIlroy has become the youngest player to spend 500 weeks inside the world’s top 10.
Stat of the week:
This week, 30.5 yo @McIlroyRory becomes the youngest player ever to spend 500 weeks inside the top 10 in the world ‼️
Tiger needed ~4 months longer to reach this remarkable #OWGR milestone.
NONE of the known younger stars could possibly break this record‼️
— Nosferatu (@VC606) November 11, 2019
McIlroy will beat Tiger Woods’ record by four months and what’s more it looks almost impossible that his new record will be beaten in the foreseeable future.
In fact – and this shows just how good this McIlroy stat is – even if a player who has just turned 21, such as recent PGA Tour winner Joaquin Niemann, was able to break into the top 10 immediately, they would not be able to spend 500 weeks there before surpassing McIlroy’s current age of 30 years and five months.
Just to show what an enormous (almost impossible) task would be for someone to break @McIlroyRory's record…
If you just turned 21 (e.g. J. Niemann) and somehow you just cracked the top 10 #OWGR, it would be impossible for you to break Rory's record! 😳https://t.co/Lpku3IWFFZ
— Nosferatu (@VC606) November 11, 2019
Rory currently sits at No. 2 in the rankings and after his latest win at the WGC-HSBC Champions he is closing in on Brooks Koepka’s No. 1 spot.
He won’t be able to make it back to the No. 1 spot before the end of 2019 but if he carries his form over to next year there could well be a change at the top.
You can take your jaws off the table now.
Rory McIlroy’s OWGR fact file
First entered the OGWR: Week 1 of 2005 (Rank 1155)
First entered top 50: Week 47 of 2008
First entered top 10: Week 47 of 2009
First reached World No. 1: Week 9 of 2012
Total weeks spent at World No. 1: 95
Joe Hughes
Tour editor covering men's golf, women's golf and anything else that involves the word golf, really. The talk is far better than the game, but the work has begun to change that.
