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'The perfect player'

Image: McIlroy: the 23-year-old has won four times on the PGA Tour in 2012

Sky Sports' Denis Pugh says every part of Rory McIlroy's golf game is in superb working order.

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Back-to-back winner McIlroy is in the form of his life, says Denis

Every aspect of Rory McIlroy's golf game is in perfect working order. That's the view of Sky Sports pundit Denis Pugh after watching the Ulsterman win the BMW Championship in Carmel, Indiana on Sunday to record back-to-back victories on the PGA Tour. World number one McIlroy, triumphant in last week's Deutsche Bank Championship as well as at the USPGA Championship in August, finished two shots clear of Lee Westwood and Phil Mickelson at Crooked Stick Golf Club, with Tiger Woods ending one stroke further back. "Right now Rory is the best player in the world," said Pugh. "He is the best driver of the ball; he is so long and it is ridiculous how accurate he is. "Then you put in his iron play which is so crisp and the fact he is now flawless with the putter in his hand from about six foot from the hole; he is the perfect player.

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"It is amazing how things have turned around [after McIlroy missed three successive cuts earlier this summer]; the talent has always been there but the way golf is it's just that sometimes you can't perform to the level expected of you all the time. Now, though, Rory is playing some of the best golf of his life, if not the best golf of his life." On McIlroy's win, Pugh's fellow analyst, Peter Oosterhuis, added: "It is a win against a very strong field and Rory has to be satisfied; it was very impressive. He was hitting the fairways even when he was bombing the driver, but he wasn't playing safe; he attacked the flag wherever it was placed." McIlroy's victory, which makes him the first European to win four PGA Tour events in a season, will play with Woods at the Tour Championship in Atlanta, which begins on Thursday, September 20. When asked whether McIlroy has superseded the 14-time Major winner as the globe's finest golfer, Oosterhuis said: "It seems that way at the moment; [at the BMW Championship] Tiger played a few shots that were not up to the standard that we have come to expect, but if Rory plays well he is a favourite anywhere he plays." However, Pugh believes that McIlroy's hot streak will bring the best out of Woods, adding: "Thinking about the way Tiger has done business in the past, I think that he will start grinding down in Jupiter, Florida and come back even more determined; I think Rory will make Tiger fight even harder." With the PGA Tour taking a week off, Sky Sports' next live golf coverage comes from the European Tour's Italian Open. Catch all the action from 10.30am, Thursday, Sky Sports 2 HD.

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