BETHESDA, Maryland—Sure, Congressional Country Club was soft as a wet sponge, but Rory McIlroy’s resolve was hard as milled steel.
Yes, Tiger Woods was absent, but if he were here, would it have mattered?
With four record-shattering rounds of golf in the 111th US Open, the 22-year-old McIlroy announced to the world his arrival as a player who could dominate the game for years to come. Many suspected this day was coming; few knew it would arrive so soon or with such clarity.
On Sunday McIlroy put the finishing touches on a sublime performance with a final-round 69. He won his first major championship by eight shots over a man, Jason Day, who didn’t make a single bogey over the final 36 holes and whose 72-hole total would have won the US Open in 49 of the last 50 years.
“I’m not going to go home and cry because I got whooped,” Day said. “You can’t beat a guy that’s gone out and played as well as Rory did this week.”
McIlroy, a dough-faced Ulsterman from Holywood, Northern Ireland, destroyed Congressional, decimated the field and rewrote the US Open record book with a 16-under-par 268 total. And he did it barely two months after a cover-your-eyes collapse at the Masters in which he shot a final-round 80 and blew a four-stroke lead.
“I felt like I got over the Masters pretty quickly,” McIlroy said. “I kept telling you guys that and I don’t know if you believed me or not.
“I had a clear picture in my mind of what I needed to do and where my focus needed to be when I got myself in that position again. And luckily enough for me, I was able to get in that position the major right after Augusta. To be able to finish it off the way I did tells me that I learned from it and I’ve moved on.
“And now that I’ve got this, I can go ahead and concentrate on getting some more.”
Y.E. Yang of Korea, who was paired with McIlroy for the final two rounds and finished 10 shots back and in a tie for third, said he realized he was playing for second place after nine holes on Saturday.
“I played with Rory for two days and my impression is that he hasn’t primed yet,” Yang said. “I think he’s still growing and it’s just scary to think about it.”
McIlroy’s game meshed perfectly with a Congressional left defenseless by rain that softened new bentgrass greens. He is long off the tee, hits his irons high, favors a right-to-left ball flight that fit the course and has the attitude of a kid for whom golf is a game to be enjoyed and not a quest for mechanical perfection.
He led the field in greens in regulation (65 of 72) and birdies (19) while averaging 310.62 yards per drive. That is a difficult combination to beat.
“The way he plays golf, it’s different golf,” said Martin Kaymer of Germany, the 2010 PGA [Professional Golfers’ Association] champion. “It’s close to perfect.”
McIlroy’s 268 total is the lowest 72-hole score in US Open history, bettering by four shots the previous record of 272 shared by Jack Nicklaus (1980), Lee Janzen (1993), Woods (2000) and Jim Furyk (2003). McIlroy’s 16-under score in relation to par also breaks Woods’ record of 12-under (2000).
At 22 years, one month, 15 days, McIlroy is the youngest US Open champion since Bobby Jones in 1923. He is the seventh wire-to-wire winner of the national championship and the first since Woods in 2002. His eight-shot victory margin is the largest on the PGA Tour since Woods won by eight at the 2009 BMW Championship.
Though McIlroy broke several of Woods’s records, the latter’s triumph at Pebble Beach in 2000 was arguably more dominant. Woods won by 15 shots and was the only player in the field to break par. At Congressional, McIlroy won by eight and 20 players broke par.
Woods, a 14-time major champion and McIlroy’s boyhood idol, withdrew from the US Open because of injuries to his left knee and Achilles’ tendon and has played just nine holes since the Masters (and shot 42 at the Players Championship). No one knows when he’ll be back.
“It would be nice obviously for him to be healthy again and get his knee and his Achilles’ in shape and be back out on the golf course,” McIlroy said. “He does bring something extra to tournaments. He’s Tiger Woods. I’m just happy to be sitting here with the trophy that has his name on it.”
McIlroy took an eight-shot lead into the final round, birdied the first hole and led by as many as 10. On one of the most difficult holes on the course, the long par-3 10th over water, he hit a 6-iron that came down off the slope and rolled to a stop less than a foot from the cup.
His tap-in birdie was in sharp contrast with the out-of-body triple-bogey 7 he made on the 10th hole at Augusta National.
“Walking off the 10th green today and walking off the 10th green at Augusta was a little different, definitely,” McIlroy said.
After that, the only questions were whether he would get to the all-time major record of 19-under, also held by Woods (2000 British Open), and the size of his victory margin. He made a low-stress par on the final hole, walked off the green and embraced his father, Gerry, and countryman Graeme McDowell, who won the 2010 US Open at Pebble Beach.
Players have gushed about McIlroy’s talent and potential, even though going into the week he had won just two tournaments as a professional. Padraig Harrington predicted McIlroy would surpass Woods’s accomplishments and maybe even break Nicklaus’s records.
“It’s nice that people say he could be this or he could be that or he could win 20 major championships,” McIlroy said. “But at the end of the day I’ve won one. I obviously want to add to that tally, but you can’t let what other people say influence what you have to do.”
Day, a 23-year-old Australian, shot bogey-free rounds of 65 and 68 on the weekend to finish second at 276; he has recorded top-10s in each of the last three majors. Yang tied for third with Lee Westwood, Robert Garrigus and Kevin Chappell at 278.
McIlroy earned $1.44 million for the victory but showed his poise and maturity when asked about the money. This is, after all, a young man who went on a Unicef mission to Haiti just days before the start of the US Open.
“We play for a lot of money week in and week out,” he said. “We’re very fortunate that we can do that. But the thing about these major championships is the history, the prestige, and just to be able to add your name to a list like Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson and Arnold Palmer. That’s the most satisfying thing about it.”
Spoken like a true champion.
