After the mesmerising magnificence of the Masters, this week’s PGA Championship at Quail Hollow has a heck of a lot to live up to.
“I’ll leave it up to the golf gods to deliver the script,” suggested the famed US broadcaster, Jim Nantz. “They’ve been quite prolific so far at their creative writing.”
Just like this correspondent’s output then? Or maybe not.
Rory McIlroy’s historic win at Augusta feels like yesterday. It is, in fact, just over 30 days since the Northern Irishman slipped into the green jacket and completed the career grand slam amid an outpouring of tearful emotion that just about caused flash flooding down Magnolia Lane.
There’s certainly been plenty of flooding in the build up to the second men’s major of the season in North Carolina this week.
Monday practice was almost a complete washout with no spectators allowed on site at all. Not quite Quail Hollow, more Sleepy Hollow.
It’s all systems go now, though, even though Mother Nature was still flinging down great basin-loads of water on the eve of the 107th staging of the PGA of America’s flagship event.
It’s 15 years now since McIlroy won the first of his 29 PGA Tour titles at Quail Hollow. This neck of the woods will always hold a special place in his golfing heart.
“Those things stay with you,” he said of a venue where he has won four times in total down the seasons.
“I think part of the reason that I've played so well here since then is that I had that positive momentum and those positive memories. Every time I come here, those good feelings get rekindled.”
This week, of course, McIlroy is returning as a golfer unburdened by a major malaise. As well as polishing off that career grand slam, his Masters success also ended an 11-year title drought in the game’s marquee events.
At last, he is arriving at a major championship free from heaving the kind of overbearing weight that would’ve buckled the legs of Hercules.
If you’d said in the aftermath of his fourth major win at the PGA Championship back in 2014 that he wouldn’t win another for over a decade, you probably would’ve been strapped to a gurney and wheeled into a padded cell.
With those shackles off, many eager observers are predicting that McIlroy will now go on to win this, that and the other.
The man himself, meanwhile, is not thinking about winning this, that or the other. He just wants to savour the mighty and historic accomplishments of a truly remarkable career.
“I feel like I sort of burdened myself with all the career grand slam stuff, and I want to enjoy this,” said the world No 2, whose haul of five majors is now just two shy of Europe’s most prolific major champion, Harry Vardon.
“I want to enjoy what I’ve achieved, and I want to enjoy the last decade or whatever of my career, and I don’t want to burden myself by numbers or statistics.
“I have achieved everything that I wanted. I’ve done everything I’ve wanted to do in the game
“I dreamed as a child of becoming the best player in the world and winning all the majors. I’ve done that. Everything beyond this, for however long I decide to play the game competitively, is a bonus.”
Whatever the future holds, that April Sunday at Augusta will be hard to top. “I’m still going to set myself goals,” he added.
“I’m still going to try to achieve certain things. But I sit here knowing that that very well could be the highlight of my career.
“I want to still create a lot of other highlights, but I’m not sure if any other win will live up to what happened a few weeks ago.”
The sight of McIlroy collapsing on the 18th green after his play-off triumph over Justin Rose and sobbing into the turf will be one of golf’s enduring images.
It’s been replayed so many times already across all sorts of platforms, the footage just about needs restored by film conservation experts.
McIlroy is not one for pressing play and rewind, mind you. “I've tried not to watch it a lot because then I just remember the visuals of the TV rather than what I was feeling and what I was seeing through my own eyes,” he said.
“I've never felt a release like that before, and I might never feel a release like that again.”
Who knows what those golfing gods have scribbled into the script this week.
