ATLANTA — Rory McIlroy didn’t leave Augusta National as the Masters champion without one last purchase from the gift shop.

He said there were 1,100 pin flags remaining in the Masters Shop.

“And we took all 1,100,” McIlroy said Tuesday ahead of the Tour Championship, the end of a PGA Tour season that has been his most memorable to date all because of one Sunday in April.

“It’s been a lot,” he said of the flags he has signed. “But I’ll never get sick of signing them. I’ve waited 17 years to sign that flag in the middle, and I will never complain about doing it.”

Players sign flags all the time for fans, but the golf protocol is that only the Masters champion signs his name inside the outline of the U.S. that is part of golf’s most famous logo.

It has been just over four months since McI

See Full Page