McIlroy learns from school of hard knocks

Golf:Rory McIlroy took the first 65 strokes towards fulfilling one part of his destiny in the 111th US Open at Congressional Country Club in suburban Washington – but he, more than most, filled in his card at the end of the first round knowing that the hard part lay ahead of him.

In shooting a six-under-par 65 which gave McIlroy a three stroke first round lead over YE Yang and Charl Schwartzel, the man who claimed the Masters green jacket at Augusta two months ago, the 22-year-old Ulsterman played flawless golf: he hit 17 of 18 greens-in-regulation, virtually unheard of in a US Open context which is traditionally the toughest examination of all of the Majors.

Of his ability to recover from the Masters fall-out, McIlroy – cool and calm and definitely not losing the run of himself – remarked: “I don’t know if it says that I’ve just got a very shot memory or, I don’t know. I took the experience from Augusta and I learned a lot from it.”

For the third time in the last four Majors, McIlroy assumed the first round lead. Now, he has to try to finish the job. “I feel like these good starts in the majors are very much down to my preparation and how I prepare for them. I mean, you’re going into the US Open. You can’t be thinking about what’s happened before (at Augusta), you’ve got to be thinking about this week and how you handle yourself around the golf course.”

Certainly, McIlroy handled himself with some authority in the first round. Playing alongside Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson – who literally zigzagged their way around the course – McIlroy remained in his own calm world to put his marker down.

“I just managed to keep the ball in the fairway and find a lot of greens, and that was basically how I shot that score,” he said.

In fact, McIlroy played textbook golf to claim the lead: having started on the 10th, he claimed the first of six birdies on the 12th where he hit a sand wedge approach six feet past the hole; on the 17th, he hit an eight-iron approach to ten feet; on the 18th, he hit an eight iron to 20 feet; on the first, he hit a lob wedge to six feet; on the fourth, he hit a wedge to four feet; and, on the sixth, he hit a three-iron approach to 15 feet and two-putted. Simple, and quite brilliant.

After his round, McIlroy talked of how Jack Nicklaus – who holds a record 18 major titles – provided encouragement to him post-Masters when the pair met at the Memorial tournament a fortnight ago.

“He just sort of said to me, there’s going to be a lot of pressure on you, but you’ve got to put a lot of pressure on yourself early. That’s what he always did. He always put a lot of pressure on himself to do well,” said McIlroy.

But there was no danger of McIlroy counting his chickens before they’ve hatched. As he reminded everyone, “this golf course is only going to get firmer and it’s going to get harder. I still think something around 2, 3, 4 under par, something like that, is going to have a good chance. Even something around level par is probably going to come very close on Sunday. It’s a US Open; they know how to make the golf course a lot more difficult than it was today.”

Lessons of the past have been learned, and McIlroy aims to take it one step at a time.