KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C.

Rory McIlroy hit off wood chips and out of sand. He even stuck one shot in a tree branch — and went on to make par like it was no big deal.

By the time the PGA Championship was over, he was in a class by himself.

“On 18, I was just taking the whole thing in,” McIlroy said. “I allowed myself the luxury of walking up 18 knowing that I was going to win. I enjoyed the moment, just let it all sink in.”

Another major championship masterpiece for the 23- year-old from Northern Ireland with seemingly unlimited potential.

From the start of the weekend, McIlroy looked like the man to beat at Kiawah Island, and nobody came close. He won Sunday by a record eight strokes, with a flair and charisma that could turn him into golf ’s next star.

Remember all that talk about how no lead is safe in 2012? McIlroy was in front the entire final round.

“I set myself a target,” he said. “I said, ‘Look, if I get to 12 under par, nobody is going to catch me.”’

He was at 12 under when he walked toward the 18th green with a seven-shot lead, but a par there would have been anticlimactic. Instead, McIlroy rolled in a 25-foot birdie — and in the process surpassed the PGA Championship record for margin of victory that Jack Nicklaus set in 1980.

McIlroy returned to No. 1 in the world and became the youngest player since Seve Ballesteros to win two majors. Tiger Woods was about four months older than McIlroy when he won his second major.

McIlroy shot a 6-under 66 in the final round to finish at 13- under 275.

McIlroy won last year’s U.S. Open by the same eight-shot margin, but after winning the Honda Classic this March, he went into a tailspin by missing four cuts over five tournaments. Questions swirled about whether his romance with tennis star Caroline Wozniacki was hurting his game.

McIlroy seized control with back-to-back birdies Sunday morning to complete the storm-delayed third round with a 67 and build a threeshot lead. He closed out a remarkable week by playing bogey-free over the final 23 holes on the demanding Ocean Course.

David Lynn, a 38-year-old from England who was playing in the United States for the first time, was the runnerup, closing with a 68.

McIlroy’s win ends a streak of the last 16 majors going to 16 different winners — a stretch that coincided with Woods’ drought in golf ’s biggest tournaments. Woods hasn’t won a major since 2008. He shared the lead after 36 holes at Kiawah Island but finished tied for 11th.

If there was a signature moment for McIlroy over the weekend, it might have been Saturday when his tee shot lodged in a thick tree branch on the third hole. He found it with help from the TV crew, took his penalty drop and fired a wedge into 6 feet to save par.

There were more highlights Sunday.

After pulling his approach on the par-5 second hole under a tree, he hit wedge off the wood chips to 6 feet for the first of two straight birdies.

On No. 10, McIlroy blasted out from a sandy area just short of the green. The ball checked a foot from the cup, giving him an easy par.

In last month’s British Open, Adam Scott lost a fourshot lead in the final four holes. McIlroy, however, closed strong.

LPGA Tour

SYLVANIA, Ohio (AP) — So Yeon Ryu rode a string of six straight birdies in the middle of her round to a 9-under 62 and a seven-stroke victory in the Jamie Farr Toledo Classic.

The 22-year-old began the day in the midst of a fourplayer logjam — all South Koreans — for first place. She took the lead by herself for the first time with an 8-foot birdie putt at the third hole and gradually stretched her advantage until pulling away with birdies on Nos. 9-14.

Angela Stanford made a long birdie putt on the final hole for 66 to finish second.

Web.com

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) — Chris Wilson won the Price Cutter Charity Championship for his first Web.com Tour title, beating Scott Harrington with a birdie on the first hole of a playoff.

Wilson, the former Northwestern player who missed the cuts in 11 of his previous 13 tour starts this year, birdied the final hole of regulation for a 5- under 67 to match Harrington, also a former Northwestern player, at 21-under 267. Harrington shot a 68, also birdieing the final hole of regulation at Highland Springs, but hit his second shot into the water on the par-5 closing hole in the playoff.

Women’s Amateur

CLEVELAND (AP) — Lydia Ko won the U.S. Women’s Amateur, beating Jaye Marie Green 3 and 1 in the 36-hole final at The Country Club.

Ko, the South Korean-born New Zealander who tops the world amateur rankings, won at 15 years, 3 months, 18 days to become the secondyoungest winner in tournament history.