Rory McIlroy will begin The Open Championship in 16 days time as favourite to lift the Claret Jug.
The Northern Irishman’s stunning performance at Congressional in which he led from the first round to the last has ensured he is the man everyone will be looking for on the leaderboard.
Now he has won a major a certain amount of pressure has been lifted.
Nevertheless, the manner in which he recovered from his disastrous final round of 80 at the Masters to win the next major championship shows that McIlroy can deal with whatever pressure he may be under in the future.
McIlroy will undoubtedly be glad that he has got ‘that monkey off his back’ like other European players like Graeme McDowell and Martin Kaymer in winning a major. Having destroyed the field at the US Open by eight shots, McIlroy will now avoid the question that Lee Westwood and Luke Donald face at every Major they turn up to about ever winning a major championship.
As a result, its fair to say that McIlroy can tee-off at Royal St George’s in a couple of weeks time continuing to play with the freedom and ease which characterized his US Open victory.
After all, he was the only player to shoot all four rounds in the 60s at Congressional.
To compare McIlroy with Tiger Woods at this present time is impossible as the US Open champion only has a handful of professional wins on the European and US Tours. As a result, McIlroy does not yet have the aura that 14-time major winner Woods had and so predicting the winner of The Open is very tough.
As previously mentioned, Lee Westwood is yet to winner a major but will nevertheless be in contention come the final round on Sunday afternoon at Royal St George’s.
The same can be said of current World Number one Luke Donald.
Meanwhile, Sergio Garcia has returned to form in the past couple of months. The Spaniard finished as runner-up last week at the BMW International Open during which he showed signs that his putting was finally starting to reach the levels his long game has been at for a number of years.
Garcia’s form is reflected by his record on the PGA Tour this season, in which he has two top 10s and six top 25s in the nine tournaments he has played.
Two-time US Open champion Retief Goosen is also coming into form with two top 5s in his last two events. Goosen also has an impressive record at the Open where he has had six top 10 finishes in the last nine years, which is as good a record as anyone.
2007 & 2008 Open Champion, Padraig Harrington has also shown signs of returning to form while other players such as Graeme McDowell, Steve Stricker and Dustin Johnson stand a great chance of being in the frame to lift the Claret Jug.
However on current form it’s hard to look past Rory McIlroy making it back-to-back major championship wins.
If McIlroy reaches the performance levels he did a couple of weeks ago at Congressional then it is unlikely that anyone will be able to challenge him. Yet maybe McIlroy’s decision to take a break from the game for two weeks will prove to be the wrong decision.
Whoever wins, the four days between 14th – 17th July will provide great viewing as every Open Championship does.
It’d be even better if a certain Tiger Woods was fit to make a return.
Images from Action Images.com, Todays Golfer.com & Golf Week.com
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