McIlroy answers big questions

McIlroy set up three birdies with his short game. He made three more over a five-hole section around the turn by making big putts, and he closed out his first US PGA Tour victory of the year with a fearless 3-wood into the wind and over the hazard that landed harmless in the right bunker for a simple up-and-down.

The third answer was his putter, and still to be determined is how long this fix will last.

Good form doesn't last forever and good putting can have an even shorter shelf life.

Even so, his struggles with the putter are a big reason McIlroy plunged from No 1 in the world nearly one year ago to No 5, removing him from the recent "Big 3" conversation, and at times making him an afterthought.

He putted so poorly at the US PGA Championship, where he missed the cut last month, that he sought help. He turned to Phil Kenyon, a British putting guru who works with Henrik Stenson and Louis Oosthuizen, and who was working with Justin Rose a month before Rose won the gold medal in Rio de Janeiro.

He also changed away from the Nike putter to a Scotty Cameron mallet last week, and while he was toward the bottom of the pack at The Barclays, he was among the top putters at the TPC Boston.

McIlroy likes Kenyon because he doesn't teach a specific technique, only principles that each player can adapt as he sees fit. McIlroy made one tweak all on his own, moving his right hand more on top of the grip to make sure the face of the putter didn't open.

This was not about the relief of winning for the first time since the Irish Open in May, or for the first time on the tour since the Wells Fargo Championship in May 2015. He was excited about where he was headed. He went up to No. 3 in the world.

His colleagues sounded a little less excited.

"A few putts go your way, get a little bit of confidence, start rolling them in, start feeling good about yourself. Over the last few days, he's obviously playing pretty well. And if he gets hot on the greens ...," Jason Day said, not needing to finish the sentence.

Adam Scott knows what it's like to be scrutinized for putting, and he referred to McIlroy as "Teflon coated" because he doesn't let the criticism stick.

"He just waits ... and he kept doing his thing," Scott said. "And this week he's found some magic in his fingers or something and he's holing everything. It's a very nice way to be. I hope he can keep doing that his whole career."