THE BACK NINE: 9 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

1. Rory McIlroy's best round, in a way, might have come on Friday. The wind was whipping across Kiawah Island and on a day when Adam Scott said 75 felt like even par (and the field average was 78.1), that's exactly what McIlroy shot in a round that in the past might have gotten away from him. He was 4 over through 13 holes and going the wrong way. Then he held a 4-iron up into the wind with his approach shot and made birdie on No. 14. He made a silly bogey the next hole but bounced back with another birdie on the 16th.

QUOTES OF THE WEEK

"At this stage, people could be saying I was right when I was saying he could challenge Jack." -- Padraig Harrington on Rory McIlroy, who got to two career majors faster than Tiger Woods did. "He's going to be the player that kids look up to, that kids measure their own wannabe games by. Ten years ago it was Tiger Woods. It still is Tiger Woods to a certain extent, but now we've got superstars like Rory McIlroy for kids to be looking at." -- Graeme McDowell, describing his good friend and the future of the game. "He's got all the talent in the world to do what he's doing. And this is the way that Rory can play. When he gets it going, it's pretty impressive to watch." -- Tiger Woods when asked just how good McIlroy is.

TWEETS OF THE WEEK

@ZachJohnsonPGA:

@McIlroyRory thanks for humbling me/us this week. Well deserved kid. Wow. Just wow!
@HunterMahan: Congrats @McIlroyRory, you left no doubt who is the best player in the world!
@bobbybaryla: Asking why Tiger doesn't swing like he did in 2000 is like asking why a 38 year old pitcher doesn't throw 100mph. #wearandtear#adaptation
"I dug in there deep," McIlroy said. "That 75 could easily have been a 77 or 78." Though, as McIlroy laughed, "Still wouldn't have made a difference." Jokes aside, it was a sign of maturity and growth in McIlroy's game. "I definitely feel like I'm getting better at handling conditions like that and being able to just know when a 74, 75 is a decent score and move on and know that the next day should be a bit better," he said.

2. Getting to that point, by the way, is something those around McIlroy could see coming. "He's been practicing hard the last two months," McIlroy's caddie, J.P. Fitzgerald, said. "He's been really good in practice; it just didn't happen at the Open Championship. He's 23 and he's improving all the time. I thought this was a special performance." So did McIlroy's putting coach, Dave Stockton, who watched on the weekend from his home in California. "I've never had a guy who's easier to teach," Stockton said. "He just gets it."

3. One of the things I didn't get was Tiger Woods' explanation of another lost weekend. For the eighth straight round on the weekend of a major, Woods failed to break par. "I came out with probably the wrong attitude [Saturday]," Woods said following a final-round 72. "I was too relaxed and tried to enjoy it, and that's not how I play. I'm intense and I'm focused on what I'm doing and nothing else matters. I play intense and full systems go. That cost me. It was a bad move on my part."
Woods entered the weekend tied for the lead but a third-round 74 put him too far back. Twice this year he's entered the last 36 holes of a major in the lead, twice he's failed to convert. Sunday was an admission that he's pressing and searching, trying to figure out how to get to No. 15.

4. Stat of the Week I: As mentioned, McIlroy's eight-shot win is the largest in PGA Championship history, breaking Jack Nicklaus' seven-shot win in 1980. "I don't really care if I win by one or if I win by eight," McIlroy said. "Of course, it is nice to be able to have the luxury of knowing that you're going to win with a few holes to go. It's nice to break a record like that, especially of Jack Nicklaus, who is the most successful player of all time so far." So far.

5. Stat of the Week II: Seven of the last 10 majors have been won by players in their 20s. I think it's safe to say the next generation is upon us, and McIlroy, with two of those majors, is the best of the group.

6. Stat of the Week III: McIlroy's victory also ended a streak of three of the previous four majors going to players who use long putters. But here's the stat, as pointed out by friend and colleague Mike Johnson of Golf World: 23 players in the field last week on Kiawah Island used some sort of long putter. Two years ago at Whistling Straits, that number was just eight. And here's one more: There was one player in each of the final three groups on Sunday with a long putter.

7. I think Adam Scott is mostly over what happened to him at the British Open. "I've been in the mix in both majors," he said. "With a better finish in [the third round], I would have been right in there in the final round but I was too far back. But the game is right there and I have eight months to think about it and get ready for the next one." Whether Scott ever gets that "one," I don't know. He's too talented not to win a major, but golf is a fickle game. When he looks back at this year, though, a tie for 11th, even if he didn't take advantage of some opportunities on the weekend here, isn't terrible considering what happened at Royal Lytham & St. Annes.

8. David Lynn came, he saw, he (mostly) conquered. In his first round of professional golf on American soil, the Englishman finished second with a couple of 68s on the weekend. By doing so, he secured a spot in next year's Masters. Pretty good consolation prize.

9. The top eight players in the U.S. Ryder Cup standings -- Woods, Bubba Watson, Jason Dufner, Keegan Bradley, Webb Simpson, Zach Johnson, Matt Kuchar and Phil Mickelson -- are locked in for next month's matches outside Chicago.
Now Davis Love III will focus on his four captain's picks. Hunter Mahan, Steve Stricker, Jim Furyk and Rickie Fowler are the next four in the standings, though Love will face an interesting decision given the recent play of Bo Van Pelt, who is 14th in the standings and coming off top 10s in three of his last four starts and a tie for 18th at the PGA Championship.
Last week, Love emphasized that he would be focusing on players who were hot and Van Pelt has been that. Europe, by the way, still has a couple of weeks before its top 10 players are set. Love and European captain Jose Maria Olazabal will announce their Captain's Picks Sept. 4 in New York.