Ross McFarlane told Sky Sports News that Rory McIlroy has the length to challenge in Georgia.
Title charge well within Rory's grasp, says Ross
Rory McIlroy has the tools to chalk up a second major win at this week's USPGA Championship, according to Sky Sports pundit Ross McFarlane.
McIlroy won his first major - the US Open - in June and McFarlane believes the 22-year-old's distance and accuracy off the tee will give him a distinct advantage at Georgia's Athletic Atlantic Club.
The Northern Ireland star will tee it up with Masters winner Charl Schwartzel and Open champion Darren Clarke in the first two rounds and McFarlane thinks McIlroy will finish the best of the three.
"There's a nice little group - McIlroy, Schwartzel and Clarke - all playing together; obviously they want to get another major in their locker," he told
Sky Sports News.
"I'm not sure Darren has stopped celebrating yet! It's a great time for him, but I'm not sure he is sharp enough to be right on his top form.
"Rory McIlroy, though, has the ideal tools for this event. The golf course is long - you have to be a very good driver of a golf ball - and that is one of the keys to Rory. He is a huge driver.
"He drove it so well at Congressional and over the last couple of weeks; if he has got his putter working again, that is brilliant."
Demanding
McFarlane is less optimistic, though, about the chances of defending champion Martin Kaymer and former World No 1 Tiger Woods lifting the title on Sunday.
"This really hasn't been the Kaymer that we saw last year when he went into the USPGA in fine form," he said. "He'd won a couple of times and was in great nick but he hasn't really shown us that this year.
"It will be very difficult [to repeat it] on a course which is very demanding. Yes, he played around Whistling Straits - one of the hardest golf courses you will ever play - and won against Bubba Watson in a play-off, but I can't see Martin defending his title that well this year."
Woods, only just back from a three-month spell out due to injury, still has Jack Nicklaus' all-time record haul of 18 majors in his sights but McFarlane thinks it will be some time before the American returns to the winner's circle.
"I think it is very difficult to come back at a World Golf Championship and then a major having been out of the game for so long. I think that edge will not be in his game," he said.
"It would be good to see him right there up at the top; hopefully he will show us some of the Tiger skills that we love to see because he is so important for the game - that's the key for Tiger, I believe.
"He sells the game and has done for us, everybody in the US, all his sponsors etc. He has been such an icon in the game and it needs Tiger Woods somewhere near the top."
Catalyst
No American has won a major title since Phil Mickelson (who finished second behind David Toms the last time the USPGA Championship was played at Atlanta) triumphed at last year's Masters.
If anyone can break that run, McFarlane believes it might be Dustin Johnson.
"Mickelson finished second to David Toms here in 2001 and a lot of people thought that was going to be his first major championship," he said. "But Toms putted him off the golf course, in fact he made a hole in one on his third round on the Saturday that was almost the catalyst.
"You never know what you are getting with Phil; if he gets the ball in play, he is going to contend. The fact is he has a great short game, but there are one or two other players that we have got to look at.
"We have got to look at Dustin Johnson, who has contended in three of the last six major championships. He has the prodigious length to get him around this golf course."
Baffled
Adam Scott, who won last week's WGC-Bridgestone Invitational by four strokes with Woods' former caddie Steve Williams on his bag, is also among the favourites to lift the title.
After seeing his new employer lift the title, Williams declared it to be 'the best week of his life' - a comment that McFarlane believes was a bitter swipe at Woods.
"How can he turn around and say, having won so many majors with Tiger, that winning that with Adam Scott was something special? I'm a little baffled by it," he admitted.
"I think it is [sour grapes] and I think a lot of the players and caddies think exactly the same; really they just want to dismiss it and get on with it and let's see what happens."
