BETHESDA, MD. (AP) - Take out one hole over the course of two days and the kid is as close to perfect as golf gets.
None of it is new to Rory McIlroy. The 22-year-old Northern Irishman has been carving up courses since he began playing on a 5,000-yard layout in the hills above his home in a Belfast suburb. Even then he was dubbed the “wee fella with the talent” who fell asleep some nights with his fingers wrapped around a golf club. Except now McIlroy is choking all the suspense out of XXL-sized Congressional and the U.S. Open.
McIlroy followed up an opening-round 65 with a 66 Thursday that left him six shots clear of the field. Not since Tiger Woods humbled Pebble Beach in the 2000 championship has anyone come so close to owning this maddening game. Yet McIlroy’s timing this week may be even more impeccable than his golf.
With Woods still in free-fall since plummeting from grace 19 months ago, and now sidelined for who knows how long by a bum leg, McIlroy has awed the galleries and his competitors with a blend of power and touch unrivaled since Woos was at the peak of his powers. He’s brought buzz back to the sport for at least two days in nearly the same measure.
“I don’t really know what to say,” McIlroy said moments after a USGA official read off a list of records he’d set or broken at the midpoint of the tournament. “It’s been two very, very good days of golf.”
Actually, it’s been much better than that. McIlroy has threaded 20 of 28 fairways and found all but four of the 36 greens. He hasn’t three-putted once and has yet to make a bogey, though a gambling approach shot from the left rough on No. 18 slithered into the pond alongside the green and resulted in a double.
“Just one of those things,” McIlroy said with a shrug.
How he handles the lead Saturday, though, could say more about McIlroy than all the words that have been written about him since he arrived on the scene by winning an important under-10 tournament in Florida, outclassing kids from two dozen countries. He took a four-stroke lead into the final round of the Masters two months ago and spit the bit soon after making the turn and crawled back to the clubhouse, humiliated, with an 80.
Some kids never recover from an afternoon like that. Michael Bannon, his coach since childhood, told The Associated Press in a recent interview in Holywood, Northern Ireland, that he was certain it would only make McIlroy stronger.
“He always had that look about him, like somebody who was going in a straight line,” Bannon said. “Always.”
The questions about McIlroy, of course, have never been about his talent but his attitude. By 22, Woods was already so cold-blooded it sent shivers down the spine of anyone who watched him play, let alone those who had to play against him. His wins _ and it’s worth remembering that Woods owns 14 majors to zero for McIlroy _ was always less about joy than dominance.
Put simply, McIlroy might be too nice, or at least was, including those moments he spent between the ropes. But even that may have changed after those gut-busting few hours in the cauldron of the Masters.
“After Augusta, I said I needed to be a little more cocky, a little more arrogant on the golf course, and think a little bit more about myself, which I’ve tried to incorporate a little bit. I just try and have a bit of an attitude, you know?” he said.
“When I get myself in these positions, I have to really make sure that I’m, that I don’t get ahead of myself and I don’t start playing defensively. I have to still play aggressively to the targets that I pick. And that’s really the main thing: Even if you get 4 or 5 ahead of the field, 6 ahead of the field or whatever, you’re trying to get 7 ahead, 8 ahead, 10 ahead, whatever.
“You’re just,” he said finally, “trying to keep going.”
So far, it’s worked. All those golfers in McIlroy’s wake haven’t surrendered, but they’re close.
“I personally won’t look at the leaderboard all weekend because there’s no point,” said Brandt Snedeker, who’s tied for third, but is nine shots back. “Just try to shoot as good as I can and find out how it stacks up on Sunday.”
“The way I look at it, the pressure is off me,” said former Masters champion Zach Johnson, also tied for third. “I’m not the one supposed to win it right now.”
On the 16th tee, in the midst of a run of three birdies in four holes, McIlroy’s caddie, P.J. Fitzgerald, grabbed a handful of ice cubes, sneaked up behind the kid and slid a few of them down the back of his shirt as a joke to remind McIlroy just how sizzling his golf was at that moment. McIlroy grabbed a handful of his own, waited until Fitzgerald turned around and let fly.
The way McIlroy has been finding every target he aims for, absolutely no one who’s tuned into the Open these last two days at Congressional should have been surprised to learn that they hit the caddie smack-dab in the middle of his chest.
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Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jlitke(at)ap.org
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