Northern Irishman moves the needle like no one else in his sport, even more so after his thrilling Masters defence<\/p>\n
Levels of greatness need not always be defined by numbers. Nick Faldo\u2019s six majors to Rory McIlroy\u2019s five prior to events at Augusta National on Sunday gave the Englishman the edge in the eyes of many in respect of Europe\u2019s finest ever golfer. That McIlroy had already won the career grand slam of majors<\/a>, therefore passing every test his sport has to offer, meant he was more worthy of the crown. Those who want to add Harry Vardon and a bygone age to the conversation should check the Jersey man\u2019s scoring for his septet of major wins.<\/p>\n It is the nature of McIlroy\u2019s achievement that sets him apart. Retaining the Masters for major No 6 places McIlroy in lofty company \u2013 Faldo, Phil Mickelson and Lee Trevino. He is suddenly one shy of Arnold Palmer. Gary Player and the non-US record of nine is a legitimate goal. Yet watching McIlroy right until the final hole at Augusta National served as a reminder that it is the addictive, thrilling style of his output that is worthy of the highest praise. The Northern Irishman was half a hole from Masters glory, shunting galleries back 50 yards so he could visualise a recovery shot from a forest. Love or loathe McIlroy, you simply cannot take eyes off him.<\/p>\n Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Northern Irishman moves the needle like no one else in his sport, even more so after his thrilling Masters defence Levels of greatness need not always be defined by numbers. Nick Faldo\u2019s six majors to Rory McIlroy\u2019s five prior to events at Augusta National on Sunday gave the Englishman the edge in the eyes of … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71586\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}