Who Is Better: McIlroy or Spieth?

Over the last couple of years, there has been a new rivalry in golf. Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth are the two young guns of the game, and the two have often come up against in each other at the top of the leaderboard. Their rivalry is also fuelled by the Ryder Cup, with McIlroy playing for Team Europe, while Jordan Spieth takes his place on Team USA. At the ages of just 26 and 22 respectively, this is a rivalry that could go on for a long time.

But how do these two golfers compare?

In the last two years, McIlroy has had to deal with injuries, including missing out on going for The Open Championship in 2015 after injuring his ankle playing football with friends. This has meant the Northern Irishman has played a lot less golf, thirteen events less than Spieth over the 2014 and 2015 seasons. However, his numbers are therefore better.

He won eight times over the two-year period, while Spieth won seven times. The American had more top three and top ten finishes, but McIlroy’s percentage of those finishes is higher due to playing in less events. The missed cuts works out around the same, but the big one is the average score per round.

McIlroy: 69.3

Spieth: 69.4

 

That statistic alone shows how close two of the world’s top three are. They have been joined at the top by Australian, Jason Day. Between the three of them, they have won five of the last eight majors. McIlroy won The Open and the PGA Championship in 2014, Spieth won the Masters and US Open, and Jason Day the PGA Championship last year.

However, McIlroy and Spieth are just a class above the Australian. Those two are the two everyone wants to watch, with the Northern Irishman now the face of EA Sports’ PGA Tour video game franchise. We may even see both on the cover of the game in future years if talk in gaming circles is correct.

However, the three of them look like they are going to go on and take the world by storm, and if they do, the world of golf could have another three-way battle like the one of the 1960s and 1970s when Gary Player, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus played off against each other again and again.