Rory will play ‘until next week’ to win PGA Championship

Rory McIlroy, unlike his second-round playing partner at this week’s PGA Championship, was completely unfazed by a few raindrops that pushed back his regularly scheduled afternoon tee time in Sunday’s final round of the PGA Championship.

In fact, with the world No. 1 on the brink of winning his fourth major championship and going back-to-back-to-back in his last three tournaments, McIlroy would bunk down at Valhalla for as long as it took to get the finale in the books.

“We got word when we were coming here that play had been suspended,” McIlroy, at 13-under through three rounds, told CBS from the shelter of a portico on the site of the men’s final major of the season.

“I’ll hang around until next week to try and win this thing,” said the 54-hole leader who will eventually take a one-shot lead over unheralded Bernd Weisberger onto the field in Louisville.

For sure, Bubba Watson may not be the world’s best mudder, and the 25-year-old from Northern Ireland was once himself a fair-weather golfer. But there was nothing he could do about the deluge that suspended play at the PGA at just before 1 p.m. ET.

“You can’t control the weather, can’t control the conditions, so you’ve just got to take what comes,” he said.

McIlroy, with a new 4:19 p.m. tee time, sang the praises of his long-time caddie, J.P. Fitzgerald, for his steadying influence, especially when the sod was so soggy.

“Sometimes caddies have to be like octopuses in this weather, have eight arms to carry towels and umbrellas and all sorts,” said the man who sometime Sunday night may become the third-youngest player to win four majors (after Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus and ahead of Seve Ballesteros).

“No, not at all,” he said about whether he had that particular elite club in mind ahead of Sunday’s round. “I’m just going for my third tournament in a row. I’m loving the position I’m in in the golf tournament, loving where my game’s at, and where I’m at mentally.

“It’s just another day of golf,” added McIlroy, who, while fellow 20-something Rickie Fowler (11-under) was raving about Rory’s game, chatting about what he needed to catch McIlroy (go low), and avoided the cookies and brownies in the media center (“That’ll weigh you down for the day”), tossed some unseen object at his new rival’s flat-billed cap.

“There’s stuff flying in here,” Fowler said, looking up.

While CBS was unable to name the UFO, it appeared that the heir apparent to a certain former world No. 1 who may be watching the proceedings from a physio’s table in south Florida, may have taken a page out of Tiger’s rain-delay playbook.

Woods, in a playful mood during a weather delay last week at Firestone, threw a paper airplane at the rain-averse Watson. While Tiger, who eventually withdrew from the Bridgestone event with a bad back that continued to plague him during his abbreviated, two-day stint at Valhalla, shanked his shot at Bubba’s feet, Rory, as his habit, airmailed his over Rickie’s head.