If anything, McIlroy’s win evoked Woods at the ’97 Masters. Both were still fresh faces, instantly embraced as good for golf and capable of almost anything. Woods was long on ego, charisma and imagination; McIlroy on charm, tenacity and a flowing, high-finish swing that has the magic combination of consistent tempo and titanic distance with little apparent effort. Woods broke the Masters scoring record (18 under) and won by 12 shots. Comparing Rory’s route to Woods in ’97 is still a stretch, especially considering all the sociological weight of Woods’s win. But the two are more on the same scale.
“The two wins are very similar. They validated what everybody expected of them,” said PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem, walking the course with McIlroy’s group. “In both cases, it sets the course. And it brings up the question, ‘What is that course?’ ”
How high do they fly and for how long? McIlroy certainly arrives with far less sense of mission, or historic entitlement, that surrounded Woods. On one hand, McIlroy says he’s motivated by his talks with Nicklaus, especially a lunch after his infamous Sunday 80 when he had a four-shot lead at the Masters two months ago.
“It’s nice when the most successful player that’s ever lived expects great things from you and tells you to ‘embrace the pressure,’ ” McIlroy said. But the 22-year-old, who joked about the bar still being open at his home town of Holywood, Northern Ireland, and that “probably everything is going on my account as well,” is clearly not as driven as either Woods or Nicklaus. Of winning a major at 22, he said, “I’m surprised that I’m so early.” And asked about his next major win and whether it might come this summer, McIlroy said, “If it might not be this year, that’s fine. . . . If I can add, great.”
Few victories have been surrounded by more cheers, grins and relief. “Every cloud has a silver lining,” McIlroy said of his Masters collapse and the sympathy it elicited. “It’s been a great thing for me in terms of support. It feels like a home match [here]. They cheered for me all week. It’s special for a foreigner to feel like you’re one of their own. That’ll probably be pretty important in the next few years.”
That sounds like McIlroy, or his sponsors, may think that a U.S. Open trophy means he should play more U.S. events and feed on that popularity.
McIlroy’s recent stumbles in majors have plenty of precedent. Nicklaus finished second to Arnold Palmer in the ’60 U.S. Open as a 20-year-old amateur. Ballesteros finished second in the ’76 British Open at 19, then won in ’79. Now, Rory’s early blunders are just marginalia for his biography. And that McIlroy history may be long and delicious.
Spoiler alert: The first major chapter has already been written. It ends with an enormous ovation in a hilly amphitheater at Congressional as the lowest score in 111 Opens was shot. As dusk fell, the Open record for goosebumps seemed in danger as well.
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