Rory McIlroy comes into the PGA Championship in a good place

Rory McIlroy, fresh off a win two weeks ago, tries for his fifth career major championship this week at a place, Kiawah Island, he dominated before.

Nine years is a long time in the life of a professional golfer.

That’s how long it’s been since Rory McIlroy, at the age of 23, came to Kiawah Island off the coast of South Carolina and obliterated the field. Looking like he was playing a different tournament and a different course than everyone else, McIlroy won the 2012 PGA Championship by a tournament-record eight shots, not making a bogey over his final 23 holes.

The PGA Championship is back at the same course this week, but McIlroy is not the same man he was. He’s now 32 and a husband and father. He’s no longer the young prodigy he was back then but a seasoned veteran with four major championships and 19 PGA Tour titles. A lot has changed in those nine years, and McIlroy understands that more than anybody.

“It’s nine years ago. It seems longer. It seems like there’s been a lot of time that’s passed, and I feel like I’m a different person and a different player,” he said on Tuesday at his press conference before the start of the 103rd PGA Championship. “I’m in a completely different place in my life.”

Rory McIlroy ready to turn a corner in PGA career

That place is a much better one than last August when he finished tied for 33rd at the PGA Championship. McIlroy was right in the middle of a prolonged slump, without a win in 18 months and dropping from No. 1 in the world a year ago to 15th, his worst ranking since 2009.

Two weeks ago, at another course where he has happy memories, McIlroy came out of it. With a new swing, formed from countless hours working with coach Pete Cowen at home in Florida, McIlroy won the Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow for the third time.

The form he showed at Quail Hollow could portend a strong week at Kiawah. He was sometimes erratic, hitting only 34 percent of the fairways. But he still finished third in greens in regulation and Strokes Gained: Putting, not missing a putt inside six feet all week. At this Pete Dye design, which demands accuracy and scrambling, that’s a recipe for success.

The most important thing that happened two weeks ago, though, was that he finally got to put his hard work to the test in a pressure moment.

“I’ve always said when you’re in the thick of it, it always seems further away than it is,” he says. “I guess the big thing that I was really encouraged with at Quail Hollow is it’s my first time really getting myself into contention in a while, and to have those thoughts and movements sort of hold up under that pressure, trying to win a golf tournament coming down some really tough holes, that’s what I was really pleased with.”

When he won at Kiawah Island nine years ago, raising his arms in the air after holing a 25-foot putt on the 72nd green to set a tournament record, McIlroy was well on his way to taking over the PGA Tour. He even wore red on Sunday, a sign that maybe the torch was being passed from Tiger to him. He won the PGA Championship again in 2014, part of a run of three straight victories that included two majors.

Nothing seemed like it was going to stop him from becoming the best player of the post-Tiger generation. But McIlroy’s career arc then took a dramatic downturn. He hasn’t won a major for nearly seven years, stuck at four as players like Jordan Spieth, Brooks Koepka, and Dustin Johnson tried to usurp his throne.

He’s in a good place now, though.

“I’m happy with where my game is,” he said. “So I guess if I go out and play my game and do what I know what I can do, then I can see myself shooting good scores on this golf course. So that’s sort of where I’m at.”

Nine years is a long time. But so is nine months. Last summer, McIlroy was an after-thought at the PGA Championship, a fallen idol. A new generation, led by champion Collin Morikawa, was coming up to fill that void. McIlroy showed at Quail Hollow that he still has that magic in him.

The memories at Kiawah are there, but that doesn’t mean he can’t make some more this week.