McIlroy ends record rampage
with 8-shot win in U.S. Open
BETHESDA, Md. – Rory McIlroy had made some brave statements after the third round, to the effect that he had learned from that crushing experience in the Masters two months ago, when he blew sky-high in the final round, and how he now knew what he had to do. He would not, he said, be consumed by the pressure of the final round of the U.S. Open, which he had entered with the heavenly cushion of an eight-shot lead.Then he came to the start of the final round Sunday, a moment everyone back home in Northern Ireland – well, all of Ireland – was waiting for. Had he truly survived the Masters crash?
McIlroy smacked his opening tee shot long and true, right into the fairway, cool and confident. Back home, they would call this a lovely drive. It finally quit rolling when it dropped into a divot hole.
“OK,” the gods of golf were cackling, “let’s see what you can do with this.”
McIlroy could get the clubface on the ball OK, but goodness knows what would happen to it from that treacherous lie. What happened to it is that McIlroy stuck it to 10 feet, rolled in the birdie putt, and dropped to 15 under par, saying “Thank you, very much.” And off he went, breaking records merrily along the way, on his path to a shimmering destiny.
Except for two insignificant bogeys, McIlroy was so brilliant, so unshaken in the final round, that even at the end, he was almost automatic. At the 18th, which he had double-bogeyed in the second round, he was short with his approach and faced a cross-country, over-hill-and-dale putt. After four days of heroics, it wouldn’t do to close with a bogey. He needed to roll a great lag putt. And he nearly holed it. He tapped in to formalize the greatest moment of his young career to date, shooting a 2-under 69 for a 16-under 268 total and an eight-stroke win.
“Once I got through the 10th and 11th,” he said, “I knew I would have to do something stupid not to win.”
At age 22, and a pro for only four years, McIlroy had his first victory in a major, his third as a pro. In the past 80 years, only one player younger ever won a major, and that was Tiger Woods, at the 1997 Masters.
It is a tribute to the single-mindedness of golfers that some seem to have thought this U.S. Open was still up for grabs. Take Sweden’s Johan Edfors, for example. He closed with a 67 for a 1-under 283, and he was asked how the Open went for him. “Very nice,” he said. “It feels great to be close to the leaders.” Then he caught himself, remembering McIlroy. “Or maybe not the leader,” he said. “But to second place, at least.”
About second place: That went to Jason Day, the 23-year-old Australian ace playing in his first U.S. Open, who closed with a bogey-free 68. He also closed strong in the Masters and tied for second. “But Rory,” he said. “You can’t beat a guy who’s gone out and played as well as he has this week.”
The only issue in doubt was – was there an American in this American national championship? Two of them finally showed up. Kevin Chappell, 24, third-year pro out of Fresno, Calif., finished with a 66, and Robert Garrigus shot 70 to join a tie for third with England’s Lee Westwood (70), ranked No. 2 in the world, and Korea’s Y.E. Yang (71).
“Well, once he started,” Westwood said, “we were all playing for second – 2-under through four was the perfect start. Well done to him.”
McIlroy would go on to birdie No. 4, and then at the watery par-3 10th, which he bogeyed in the third round, he nearly holed his tee shot. Maybe it was too much to ask that a hole-in-one grace this stunning performance. He tapped it in for a birdie and was 17 under. If he showed any nerves, it was at the 12th, where he missed a par putt from six feet for only his second bogey of the Open, and after another birdie at the 16th, he three-putted the 17th for his third bogey.
“The course condition helped me a lot with my high-ball flight,” said McIlroy. Congressional had been softened by earlier rains. “I was able to stop the ball on these greens,” he said.
“I was trying to emulate Tiger,” he said. “Just growing up and watching him dominate the Masters in 1997 and dominate Pebble [Beach] and St. Andrews. I was trying to go out there with the same intensity he had – that no lead was big enough.”
In this case, eight was enough.
“I’m very happy to win the U.S. Open,” McIlroy asaid, “and to win it with a bit of style is always nice.”
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