McIlroy, Horschel and Day: Tour Championship Is Kind of a Big Deal

To borrow a phrase from Ron Burgundy, for today’s players, the Tour Championship is kind of a big deal.

Sure they are tired. Sure they have aches and pains. Sure they have other things going on in their lives at home that need attention. But they really want to be at the Tour Championship, and they really want to win it because if they win the golf tournament, they could win the FedExCup.

Take Billy Horschel, for instance. His wife is 8.5 months pregnant, and he’s hoping she doesn’t deliver over the weekend. However, they have already decided that if she does go into labor, he should stay and finish the event because of the chance for $10 million. Horschel said several times today that it would give them a secure future forever. To them, the family security a victory could bring is worth staying and playing.

This is a new way of thinking. We are used to Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson needing to be encouraged to play in the final events, and typically, they skip one. This year, Mickelson had an uncharacteristically poor season, and that did not make his interest in the series better. Woods is out with injury. Again. 

However, the change afoot isn’t confined to Horschel. Rory McIlroy wants to win, and in his case, the man does not need another dime.

“It would be the icing on the cake, really,” McIlroy said, acknowledging four victories in 2014, including two majors and a World Golf Championship. “I wanted to cap it off in style, and I’ve given myself a chance to do that.”

He likes the format and the timing.

“In years gone by, after the PGA Championship, guys just shut it down for the rest of the year,” he explained. “It gives you another incentive for the next sort of five or six weeks going on."

As he said, he has nothing to lose, and that frees him up to just play golf.

“I just want to finish my season off the way I feel like I should and the way I feel like it deserves to be finished off,” he said. He wants the double win: the Tour Championship and the FedExCup.

Jason Day has battled injuries in 2014, but he is persevering because of the opportunity at hand.

“I had to mentally focus a lot harder with the injuries on the golf course,” he said. “But I have an opportunity to win the FedExCup, like I had the opportunity to win four majors this year. I’m not going to stop until it’s over.”

Leading by two shots over McIlroy, Day and Chris Kirk, Horschel said he’d be happy to shoot a third 66 and see where that got him. He and Todd Anderson, his instructor, have a game plan.

“We’ll have some information from the way the course is playing before we tee off and take that into account,” he said. “We’re just trying to be smart out there and take what the course is offering up that day.”

He said the toughest holes for him are the fifth and the sixth, depending on which way the wind is blowing.

“Obviously 13’s another one,” he added, “and then that three-hole stretch, 16, 17, 18, just depends on the way the wind’s blowing and everything. Three really good finishing holes.”

With two rounds remaining, even players halfway down the leaderboard have an excellent opportunity to win, and that includes Bubba Watson, Sergio Garcia, Jordan Spieth and Adam Scott.

Kathy Bissell is a Golf Writer for Bleacher Report. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes were obtained first-hand or from official interview materials from the USGA, PGA Tour or PGA of America.