fRoM;the;u.s.;open
McIlroy;poised;to;rewrite;history
let’s make this perfectly
clear: rory mcilroy is not
tiger woods. but like it
or not, fair or unfair, if the
22-year-old bundle of curly
topped talent puts up a
round sunday at the u.s.
open anything close to his
first three, the comparisons
are going to begin. and if
somehow he should lose the
eight-stroke lead he takes
into the final round ... well,
we know how painfully brutal that story will play out.
winning by 15. mcilroy is
eight ahead of y.e. yang.
• mcilroy has played 54
holes in 199 strokes, making just one bogey and one
double bogey, breaking the
54-hole record of 200 set
by Jim furyk at olympia
fields in 2003.
golf right now is the realiza-tion that mcilroy learned
from his masters meltdown.
he played with a calculated
calm saturday, making
several great scrambling
pars, his 4 on no. 3 the most
prominent. after a drive into
the right rough that left him
no clear path to the green,
he pitched out to the fairway and got up and down
from 90 yards. it was clear
thinking under pressure,
one of the skills that escaped him at augusta.
rory mcilroy. late sunday
afternoon, in the shadow
of our nation’s capital, the
trophy representing our
national championship will
be handed to the young
man from northern ireland
who is a clear crowd favorite here.
through 54 holes at con-
gressional, rory has put up
numbers that are—forgive
me—tiger-like. Just check
this out:
• if he shoots a 72 sunday,
mcilroy will break woods’
record of 12 under par at a
u.s. open, and the 72-hole
scoring record of 272, held
by woods and three others.
“i hope i can give them
something else to cheer
about,” he said with a shy
smile. chances are he will,
and then we will ask: is
mcilroy going to be as good
as woods?
• before this week, no one
had ever gotten to 13 under
par in the u.s. open. mcilroy is 14 under through 54
holes.
what does mcilroy need to
do sunday to take home his
first major championship, a
feat that eluded him at the
masters in april when he
closed with an 80 to blow
a four-stroke lead? Just
keep the ball in front of him.
no one can go low enough
to catch mcilroy unless
he gives them a massive
amount of help.
“i knew going out i was
going to feel a little bit of
nerves,” mcilroy said about
the miraculous par. “[that
save] gave me a little bit of
rhythm.”
who would ever have
thought we would be asking
that question this soon?
• the largest lead after
three rounds in the u.s.
open was 10 strokes by
woods at pebble beach in
2000, when he ended up
what makes mcilroy’s
performance to this point
even more impressive than
the numbers is that he is
doing it in the very next
major after his disaster at
the masters. i’ll stick my
neck out now and say this:
the hiccups are over for
Ron;sIRak
executive editor,
Golf World
what should scare anyone
else playing professional
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