Move over, Tiger Woods. Golf has a new young superstar.
Rory McIlroy, the 22-year-old phenom from Northern Ireland, won the U.S. Open in dominating fashion yesterday, sweeping away his famous past stumbles — and a once-beloved monster named Tiger — like little more than bad memories.
His final score of 16-under set a new Open record, and his 8-stroke victory neatly summed up how far ahead of the field he was the whole week.
“The whole week has been incredible,” McIlroy said as he held the championship cup yesterday. “I couldn’t ask for much more, and I’m just so happy to be holding this trophy.”
At 22 years and 46 days old, McIlroy is the second-youngest player to win a major since World War II. Woods was 21 years, 100 days when he won the 1997 Masters.
Yet, despite the dominating look of the leaderboard, McIlroy’s win never quite felt assured until the final ball hit the bottom of the cup.
Indeed, even before McIlroy walked up to the first tee at Congressional Country Club yesterday, he knew better than most the difficulty of what lay ahead of him: Two months ago, at the Masters in Augusta, McIlroy took a 4-stroke lead into the final round and shot a catastrophic 80, finishing in 15th place.
It was a fate that would not be repeated.
Over four steady hours yesterday, McIlroy hit fairway after fairway, putt after putt, serving up a solid stream of pars — and just enough birdies — to win the U.S. Open in a runaway.
It was the first major tournament win for McIlroy, who had previously won a tournament apiece on the PGA Tour and the European Tour.
Throughout the U.S. Open, his father, Gerry McIlroy, could be seen running along the course, tracking every movement of his son’s golf ball. It was Gerry who first turned Rory on to the game — he gave him his first plastic golf club when his son was still an infant — and helped cultivate in his boy a love for the game.
Growing up in the town of Hollywood, Northern Ireland, the family was poor, and Gerry worked long hours as a janitor and bartender at the golf club in order to help fund his son’s burgeoning talent.
“I am a working-class man,” Gerry told reporters over the weekend. “That’s all I knew to get the money we needed.”
After McIlroy turned pro in 2007 at the age of 18, he chose to enter tournaments closer to home, and after McIlroy stumbled at Augusta in April, America may not have seemed like such a welcoming place for the baby-faced talent.
But, McIlroy said, the collapse had proven to be an essential training ground.
“Augusta was a very valuable experience for me,” he said yesterday after his win. “I knew what I needed to do today to win, and at Augusta I learned a few things about myself and about my game. And it paid off.”
On hand to cheer McIlroy was his on-and-off girlfriend, Holly Sweeney, 20 — who comforted him after the Masters loss, despite their having been broken up at the time. The pair reportedly met in 2005 at a golf club McIlroy’s hometown.
Greg Norman, a two-time Masters winner, suggested the young man stop watching the news reports about himself — advice he seemed to take. Asked after round one of the Open about his evening plans, a relaxed McIlroy laughed, and said he was planning to catch “The Hangover 2.”
The good-natured lad showed some of the same sense of humor when he donned a “McIlroy” wig at the Ryder Cup in September — after his European teammates made fun of his notoriously shaggy locks.
Saturday evening, one of those teammates, reigning U.S. Open champion Graeme McDowell, punctuated McIlroy’s rise by saying, “Rory has the potential to be the next Tiger Woods.”
The comparisons with Woods — who was injured for the Open and has not returned to form after embarrassing personal revelations and a collapsed marriage two years ago — were inevitable.
But on the course at Congressional, McIlroy showed little of the flair and theatrics that once made Woods America’s favorite golfer to watch — the miracle saves from the trees, the 30-foot sweeping birdie putts, the wild fist pumps.
Instead, McIlroy’s play at the Open was steady and dominant, virtually nonchalant. From the first day, it often looked like he was playing a different — easier — course than the rest of the field.
He wasn’t, and the rest of the pros — many of them decades his elder — could do little but admire the rise of a new star.
Even Woods, watching from home, offered up praise: “Congrats to Rory,” he told a reporter for the Golf Channel. “What a performance, from start to finish.”
Joshua.Hersh@thedaily.com
Rory McIlroy, the 22-year-old phenom from Northern Ireland, won the U.S. Open in dominating fashion yesterday, sweeping away his famous past stumbles — and a once-beloved monster named Tiger — like little more than bad memories.
His final score of 16-under set a new Open record, and his 8-stroke victory neatly summed up how far ahead of the field he was the whole week.
“The whole week has been incredible,” McIlroy said as he held the championship cup yesterday. “I couldn’t ask for much more, and I’m just so happy to be holding this trophy.”
At 22 years and 46 days old, McIlroy is the second-youngest player to win a major since World War II. Woods was 21 years, 100 days when he won the 1997 Masters.
Yet, despite the dominating look of the leaderboard, McIlroy’s win never quite felt assured until the final ball hit the bottom of the cup.
Indeed, even before McIlroy walked up to the first tee at Congressional Country Club yesterday, he knew better than most the difficulty of what lay ahead of him: Two months ago, at the Masters in Augusta, McIlroy took a 4-stroke lead into the final round and shot a catastrophic 80, finishing in 15th place.
It was a fate that would not be repeated.
Over four steady hours yesterday, McIlroy hit fairway after fairway, putt after putt, serving up a solid stream of pars — and just enough birdies — to win the U.S. Open in a runaway.
It was the first major tournament win for McIlroy, who had previously won a tournament apiece on the PGA Tour and the European Tour.
Throughout the U.S. Open, his father, Gerry McIlroy, could be seen running along the course, tracking every movement of his son’s golf ball. It was Gerry who first turned Rory on to the game — he gave him his first plastic golf club when his son was still an infant — and helped cultivate in his boy a love for the game.
Growing up in the town of Hollywood, Northern Ireland, the family was poor, and Gerry worked long hours as a janitor and bartender at the golf club in order to help fund his son’s burgeoning talent.
“I am a working-class man,” Gerry told reporters over the weekend. “That’s all I knew to get the money we needed.”
After McIlroy turned pro in 2007 at the age of 18, he chose to enter tournaments closer to home, and after McIlroy stumbled at Augusta in April, America may not have seemed like such a welcoming place for the baby-faced talent.
But, McIlroy said, the collapse had proven to be an essential training ground.
“Augusta was a very valuable experience for me,” he said yesterday after his win. “I knew what I needed to do today to win, and at Augusta I learned a few things about myself and about my game. And it paid off.”
On hand to cheer McIlroy was his on-and-off girlfriend, Holly Sweeney, 20 — who comforted him after the Masters loss, despite their having been broken up at the time. The pair reportedly met in 2005 at a golf club McIlroy’s hometown.
Greg Norman, a two-time Masters winner, suggested the young man stop watching the news reports about himself — advice he seemed to take. Asked after round one of the Open about his evening plans, a relaxed McIlroy laughed, and said he was planning to catch “The Hangover 2.”
The good-natured lad showed some of the same sense of humor when he donned a “McIlroy” wig at the Ryder Cup in September — after his European teammates made fun of his notoriously shaggy locks.
Saturday evening, one of those teammates, reigning U.S. Open champion Graeme McDowell, punctuated McIlroy’s rise by saying, “Rory has the potential to be the next Tiger Woods.”
The comparisons with Woods — who was injured for the Open and has not returned to form after embarrassing personal revelations and a collapsed marriage two years ago — were inevitable.
But on the course at Congressional, McIlroy showed little of the flair and theatrics that once made Woods America’s favorite golfer to watch — the miracle saves from the trees, the 30-foot sweeping birdie putts, the wild fist pumps.
Instead, McIlroy’s play at the Open was steady and dominant, virtually nonchalant. From the first day, it often looked like he was playing a different — easier — course than the rest of the field.
He wasn’t, and the rest of the pros — many of them decades his elder — could do little but admire the rise of a new star.
Even Woods, watching from home, offered up praise: “Congrats to Rory,” he told a reporter for the Golf Channel. “What a performance, from start to finish.”
Joshua.Hersh@thedaily.com
