Written by Stephen Moloney (www.twitter.com/TheCheeky9)
Rory McIlroy has always been someone who says what’s on his mind and, as such, it’s endeared him to the press over the years. In a world where the vast majority of modern athletes, especially those of McIlroy’s status, say nothing in interviews or press conferences that doesn’t fall under what they learned in the “media training” session put on by their agents in a glass panelled conference room with a guy called Brent who has a degree in communications, McIlroy is a welcome breath of fresh air and original thinking.
And, really, it’s a trait that should be applauded. He takes his position as one of the top stars in the game and uses the platform that comes with it to voice opinions that will be heard because it’s him that’s saying it.
Sometimes, though, this instinct to say exactly what’s on his mind in a given moment can lead Rory into trouble. The first time I can think of when this happened was more than a decade ago when he inadvertently played down the significance of the Ryder Cup before ever playing in it with that “exhibition” comment – something he later said he regretted saying.
And the most recent occurence, of course, was this past Sunday with his comments with regards to course setups in Europe being “too easy” in the aftermath of the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship.
Now, we have to take into account that in the hours after making those remarks – and the flurry of commentary online which followed them being published – Rory posted an extended comment on his Instagram page where he went into more detail on how his thoughts about course setups are not just confined to Europe, but worldwide also. And that’s fair enough.
After those original comments on Sunday, however, and reading his subsequent thoughts on Instagram, I decided to take a closer look at Rory’s concerns and see just how easy the European Tour is when compared to the PGA Tour. So, I did a little digging. And through that digging I found out what has been the winning score and runner-up score for every tournament played up until the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship on the European Tour this season and compared them to the winning score and runner-up score for every event played during the recently finished 2018-19 PGA Tour season, excluding, in both cases, scores from the Majors and WGC’s, but also any ‘non-strokeplay’ and team events. And here’s what I found:
| European Tour 2018/19 | Winning Score | Runner-up Score |
| Honma Hong Kong Open | -17 | -16 |
| Australian PGA Championship | -16 | -14 |
| Afrasia Bank Mauritius Open | -20 | -18 |
| South African Open | -18 | -12 |
| Alfred Dunhill Championship | -14 | -12 |
| Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship | -18 | -17 |
| Omega Dubai Desert Classic | -24 | -17 |
| Saudi International | -19 | -17 |
| ISPS Handa Vic Open | -18 | -17 |
| Oman Open | -7 | -6 |
| Commercial Bank Qatar Masters | -13 | -11 |
| Magical Kenya Open | -16 | -15 |
| Maybank Championship | -15 (playoff) | -15 (playoff) |
| Hero Indian Open | -9 | -8 |
| Trophee Hassan II Golf | -9 | -7 |
| Volvo China Open | -20 (playoff) | -20 (playoff) |
| Betfred British Masters | -16 | -15 |
| Made in Denmark | -14 | -13 |
| BMW International Open | -15 (playoff) | -15 (playoff) |
| Estrella Damm N.A. Andalucía Masters | -10 | -4 |
| Dubai Duty Free Irish Open | -16 | -14 |
| Aberdeen Standard Investments Scottish Open | -22 (playoff) | -22 (playoff) |
| D+D Real Czech Masters | -19 | -18 |
| Scandinavian Invitation | -19 | -18 |
| Omega European Masters | -14 (playoff) | -14 (playoff) |
| Porsche European Open | -14 | -13 |
| KLM Open | -18 | -17 |
| BMW PGA Championship | -20 | -17 |
| Alfred Dunhill Links Championship | -22 | -21 |
And here are the relevant scores from the 2018/19 PGA Tour season:
| PGA Tour 2018/19 | Winning Score | Runner-Up Score |
| Safeway Open | -14 (playoff) | -14 (playoff) |
| CIMB Classic | -26 | -21 |
| CJ Cup | -21 | -17 |
| Sanderson Farms Championship | -21 | -17 |
| Shriners Hospitals for Children Open | -21 | -20 |
| Mayakoba Golf Classic | -22 | -21 |
| RSM Classic | -19 (playoff) | -19 (playoff) |
| Sentry Tournament of Champions | -23 | -22 |
| Sony Open | -22 | -18 |
| Desert Classic | -26 | -25 |
| Farmers Insurance Open | -21 | -19 |
| Waste Management Phoenix Open | -17 | -15 |
| AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am | -19 | -16 |
| Genesis Open | -14 | -13 |
| Puerto Rico Open | -15 | -12 |
| Honda Classic | -9 | -8 |
| Arnold Palmer Invitational | -12 | -10 |
| The Players Championship | -16 | -15 |
| Valspar Championship | -8 | -7 |
| Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship | -18 | -17 |
| Valero Texas Open | -20 | -18 |
| RBC Heritage | -12 | -11 |
| Wells Fargo Championship | -15 | -12 |
| AT&T Byron Nelson | -23 | -21 |
| Charles Schwab Challenge | -13 | -9 |
| The Memorial Tournament | -19 | -17 |
| RBC Canadian Open | -22 | -15 |
| Travelers Championship | -17 | -13 |
| Rocket Mortgage Classic | -25 | -19 |
| 3M Open | -21 | -20 |
| John Deere Classic | -21 | -19 |
| Barbasol Championship | -26 | -25 |
| Wyndham Championship | -22 | -21 |
| The Northern Trust | -16 | -15 |
| BMW Championship | -25 | -22 |
| Tour Championship | -13 | -10 |
Now, to examine all of those numbers and put them into some form of context, I devised the following categories:
(i) Number of tournament where the winning score was -20 or better.
(ii) Number of tournaments where the winning score was -10 or higher.
And the below table shows how both tours stack up in relation to one another:
| European Tour | PGA Tour | |
| No. of tournaments with a winning score of -20 or better | 6 out of 29 events | 18 out of 36 events |
| No. of tournaments with a winning score of -10 or higher | 4 out of 29 events | 2 out of 36 events |
Now, obviously, we have to take into account that this year’s European Tour season has not yet finished, so the numbers above can obviously still change in that regard, but, still, that is quite a difference between the two tours. Like, on the PGA Tour last season, of the 36 events counted, 50% of them finished with a winning score of -20 or better, compared to just 20.6% of the events played so far this year on the European Tour.
And when you look deeper into those numbers again, of those 6 tournaments on the European Tour where there was a winning score of -20 or better, three of them happened at courses on the continent of Europe and the other three were divided up between Mauritius, China and Dubai. Similarly, of those 18 tournaments where there was a score of -20 or better on the PGA Tour, fourteen of them occurred on courses in the United States, and the remaining four were divided between Kuala Lumpur, South Korea, Canada and Mexico.
As for the opposite end of the spectrum? Where tournaments finished with a score of -10 or higher? Again, the European Tour comes out on top with 13.7% of the events played so far this year having a winning score that’s just creeped into double figures, compared to 5.5% on the PGA Tour.
So, from looking at the sheer numbers alone, you’d have to say that from the data we currently have at our disposal, the PGA Tour could be described as having the easier course setups when compared to the European Tour, if you’re looking purely at winning scores; though, of course, we’ll be able to get a fairer and more complete picture of how they stack up once the European Tour season reaches its climax in November.
What could have been?
Another comment that caught my eye was when Rory, somewhat in the heat of the moment you’d have to think, said, “I’m honestly sick of coming back over to the European Tour and shooting 15 under par and finishing 30th …”.
Now, for a bit of context, McIlroy has played four ‘regular’ European Tour events this season: The Scottish Open; Omega European Masters; BMW PGA Championship; and the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship. In each of those tournaments he clocked up scores of -13, -14, -11 and -15 for finishes of T-34, T-2, T-9 and T-26 respectively – all really good finishes.
What I went and did, though, was, given what he said about being sick of coming back over to Europe, shooting -15 and finishing 30th, I went and checked where a total score of -15 would have seen someone finish in every European Tour event (the same 29 as I counted earlier) so far this year. And here are the results:
| Wins | Runner-Ups | Top 5’s | Top 10’s |
| 9 | 7 | 9 | 2 |
Those are some pretty impressive numbers, right? And all from just shooting -15. What’s even more crazy, though, is that twice this year the score of -15 has actually resulted in a playoff being needed to decide who wins a tournament, and in those instances, I counted that as a ‘runner-up’ finish. But if I hadn’t? Well, that would bring the total of ‘wins’ up to eleven and the ‘runner-ups’ drop back down to five.
Now, for those of you who were bothered to add up those numbers in the above table, you may have noticed that I’ve only accounted for 27 tournaments. And you’re correct. So, where would a score of -15 have seen you finish in those two remaining events? T-26. And those finishes would have come at the Scottish Open and the Alfred Dunhill Links – two of the events McIlroy played this year.
So, in the end, what have we learned from deep-diving into the points raised by Rory? Well, we’ve learned two things:
One, while course setups could stand to maybe get a bit tougher, it’s more of a pressing concern for the PGA Tour than the European Tour at this current moment in time.
And, two, -15 is still a really good score on the European Tour … you just have to play in more than four tournaments a year to see it pay off.