McIlroy (65) leads U.S. Open;
Is this Masters tale revisited?
BETHESDA, Md. – This is either the start of another very bad good news-bad news joke, or else it’s the start of Something Very Big.That’s the youngish Northern Irishman Rory McIlroy atop the leaderboard of the first round of your U.S. Open championship. When last seen, just two months ago, McIlroy was atop the leaderboard of your Masters Tournament for three rounds, and then up to his neck in humiliation. The thumbnail post mortem of one of the more gruesome crashes in Masters history is this: McIlroy is leading by three going into the final round, is clinging by his fingernails to a one-shot lead at the turn, then at the 10th he bounces a wide-left tee shot off a tree and deep off the fairway, among some cottages, and from there makes a triple bogey-7 and is gone. When golfers do stuff like that, loved ones like to keep sharp instruments away from them. But McIlroy did muster enough guts to grin about and to say he hoped he would learn from it.
Well, it seems he did learn something, for this one day, at least. At a Congressional that was playing long and hard for everyone else, McIlroy shot himself a nifty 6-under 65. And with no bogeys. All for a three-shot lead over Korea’s Y.E. Yang and – if you like your irony straight – over South Africa’s Charl Schwartzel, the guy who passed the broken McIlroy to win the Masters, thus leaving thoughts of the Grand Slam dancing in their heads.
McIlroy’s 22 now and beyond being called a child prodigy, but he does have quite a history despite his youth. He opened the 2010 British Open with a 63, tying the low single-round score for the majors, and he shot 65 at the recent Masters, so he does have a way of tantalizing the fans. And himself, one should think. He’s clearly destined to break through and win a major one of these days, and sooner probably than later. Or is he?
It would seem that he had quieted that Masters stuff. This seemed to be evident from his attack on Congressional. He wasn’t thinking 65. He was thinking about his 63 at St. Andrews and how he might have broken that and set the record for majors. Like a 62 or some crazy thing.
“It did slip into my mind playing the fifth hole,” he said, that being his 14th, “if I could birdie that and birdie three of the last four coming in, I could have done that, as well. Didn’t quite work out that way, but, “ he conceded, “this is definitely up there.”
How does one shoot such a 65 on Congressional. Well, one misses only one green, and then one lays out six birdies on putts ranging from four feet to 15 or so.
The big lesson McIlroy learned at the Masters was not to change his strategy. “I played smartly, but I played aggressively to my targets and aggressively to the spots I wanted to hit it,” he said. That was for the first three rounds. “And then going into Sunday,” he said, “I started to play defensively, and that’s when things can go wrong.”
It seems the prevailing notion over the years was that you play the U.S. Open defensively, cautiously. There’s a lot to be said for that kind of thinking for a U.S. Open course, usually the toughest they ever play. McIlroy is thinking the other way.
“Yeah, again, this week it’s about being aggressive to the spots, a lot of the week,” he said. “There’s 200-yard plates [markers] and 150-yard plates on the fairway. A lot of holes, I’m just trying to hit it to the 150 spot off the tee, and then I’m playing my iron shot in from there. So it’s being aggressive to the target you have.”
It will remain to be seen, of course, whether he sticks to that game plan. A bad bounce here, a glitchy swing there, and he might end up, who knows where.
McIlroy was a study in tunnel vision, playing unaffected by the adventures of his playing partners, Phil Mickelson, who shot 74, and Dustin Johnson, 75, and both of them hitting it all over the place. Mickelson had some breathtaking adventures, most especially at No. 16, where he was hitting driver out of deep rough up a steep bank, trying to stay under some tree limbs. Did McIlroy avert his eyes?
“No, I don’t think it affects you at all,” he said. “All you’re doing is trying to concentrate on your own game.”
It will be his good fortune if Jack Nicklaus doesn’t stop by. McIlroy played Nicklaus’ Memorial Tournament two weeks ago, and the crash at the Masters came up in polite conversation, during which Nicklaus offered a kind of fatherly encouragement.
“He really didn’t threaten to beat me up,” McIlroy said. “But he did say he would kick my butt.”
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