2014 FedEx Cup: For Rory McIlroy, FedEx Win Is About Legacy More Than Loot

Rory McIlroy has reached an altitude where it’s safe to turn on all electrical and portable devices, but the captain has asked that you remain seated with your seatbelt firmly secured.

The turbulent ascent of McIlroy’s game through the first three legs of the FedEx Cup playoffs (T22, T5, T8) has calmed and, it appears, he’s set to soar far above and beyond the rest of this Tour Championship.

McIlroy rolled in a couple grenades on Nos. 17 and 18 to finish the day with a five-under 65 and six-under par overall.

For McIlroy, the FedEx Cup was never about the money, never about the $10 million. This is a guy who reportedly earns that much per year from Nike alone. His net worth on Forbes.com is $24.3 million with $20 million of that coming from endorsements.

If those Omega commercials and its overbearing use of The Script's “Hall of Fame” began to irritate you, by all means pop in a pair of Bose noise-cancelling ear buds. McIlroy will be more than happy to have played a role in either purchase.

While Billy Horschel spoke liberally of how nice it would be to win $10 million (so much so he may miss the birth of his daughter), McIlroy wants the hardware, wants his share of history. It’s the battle laid before him. He can’t win a green jacket until April so the FedEx Cup is the next barbarian horde within arm’s length of his broadsword. McIlroy said in The Guardian:

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I am not saying I am motivated by the money in any way. It is obviously nice and I have made a lot of money over the past seven or eight years that I have been on tour. But it’s one of the only things that I haven’t achieved in the game of golf, a FedEx Cup win. That’s the real reason I want to win this week. I just want to finish the year off well. The money is nice, it’s great. But at the same time it’s the title that would mean more to me.

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He’s playing for something greater. He’s playing for legacy, this at the age of 25.

He’s the first player since Tiger Woods to truly own the No. 1 world ranking. McIlroy swiped it away from Adam Scott at the WGC Bridgestone Invitational and then went on to win the PGA Championship, his second PGA and fourth major overall.

Unless Woods or Phil Mickelson (and Tom Watson if it’s The Open Championship) tees it up, McIlroy leads the field with the most major titles in every tournament he plays. Only Ernie Els equals McIlroy’s major titles and outside of his 2012 Open Championship comeback win, hadn't won a major in a full decade.

Funny, there was a time in 2014 when McIlroy was considered a choker, a hare always caught by a seasoned tortoise. He could shoot low on Thursday, but he’d cough it up on Friday. That was the biggest storyline heading into The Open Championship (and with good reason).

At the Scottish Open prior to The Open, he shot 64 on Thursday, then added two touchdowns and two extra points to that on Friday. It was the third time he had done that in 2014. The other two times were the Wells Fargo Championship and the Memorial where he went 63-78. Remember when Jack Nicklaus gave him some advice prior to the U.S. Open?

McIrloy said prior to the U.S. Open:

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[Nicklaus] said to me ‘How the hell can you shoot 63 and then 78. I said I wasn’t meaning to, Jack. I’m trying not to! He said to me he was never afraid to change things up in the middle of a round if it wasn’t going well. (If) he felt like he wasn’t swinging well, he’d make a swing change right then and there.

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Not that long ago, McIlroy wasn’t the scourge of the Tour he is now. He went winless in 2013 (he hadn't won on tour since the 2012 BMW Championship) and took till July of 2014 to win a tournament of any merit. He was the alcohol that burned up in the skillet: bright and hot, but fleeting and ultimately forgettable.

The Golden Bear’s advice didn’t immediately sink in, but the kind of anti-venom Nicklaus inoculated McIlroy with took time to reach the heart where it pumped with a fury we haven’t seen since Woods made winning streaks routine.

Even when McIlroy puts his drive in the pocket of a spectator (as he did on No. 14 Friday at East Lake Golf Club) he manages par. Now he has put himself in a perfect stalking position at the Tour Championship.

Rivals could include Chris Kirk, No. 1 in the FedEx Cup standings, a relative no-name who went shot-for-shot with McIlroy Sunday and Monday at the Deutsche Bank Championship. Also Horschel won't fade and the wounded Jason Day keeps bobbing to the lead at East Lake.

McIlroy’s not after money. There are bigger things at play. He said during the Golf Channel broadcast:

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I think it’s just the icing on the cake on what has already been a fantastic season. To win two major golf championships, my first World Golf Championship… I’ve been a lot more consistent this year. I really wanted to finish this PGA Tour season off well, the way I feel like it deserves to be finished off.

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McIlroy's focus has been so sharp, so keen, that everything he sets his sights on gets tractor-beamed into his orbit. The Tour Championship—and the FedEx Cup playoffs—are no different.

All stats provided by PGA Tour.com. I hang out on Twitter @BrendanOMeara.