Liguori: Rory Is The Story At The US Open
By Ann Liguori
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Rory is the story. Rory McIlroy is running away with the tournament after only the first two rounds!
The 22-year-old from Northern Ireland shot a 5-under 66 on Friday after the 6-under 65 on Thursday, and with an 11-under 131, there really is no other story at Congressional.
Either he will continue to dominate and break more records and win his first Major Championship OR he could….No.
Unthinkable. No more melt-downs. Not with such a gigantic lead.
Here are some of the milestones that came out of Rory's stellar play:
With his eagle on the 8th hole, Rory reached double digits at '10 under' after just 26 holes;
With his birdie on 17, Rory became the first to reach '13 under' at a US Open.
His only flaw in two rounds? His second shot on the brutal 18th hole found the water and all of a sudden, a big, fat double bogie showed up on his score card. He did not even have a bogie in two days! But that 'double' dropped him to '11 under' which is still the lowest 36 hole score in US Open history!
Of course, everyone wants to know what he has figured out since he let that four shot lead evaporate when he shot an '80' in the final round of The Masters?
McIlroy said he added some thoughts to his approach since Augusta:
"Yeah. I said a couple of things that I've done is just a little change to my attitude and my demeanor, maybe, on the course. I did a piece after Augusta where 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, just on the golf course. I just try and have a bit of an attitude, you know? But that's really been ‑‑ 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, ten ahead, whatever, you're just trying to keep going."
Along the way, Rory is picking up wisdom from some of the greats in the game. At the Memorial Tournament several weeks ago, here is what he said that Jack Nicklaus told him:
"He said to me that there's going to be ‑‑ he said he always put a lot of pressure on himself. He expected himself to play well. He expected himself to be up there all the time. And he said to me I expect you to do the same thing.
So he said you have to put pressure on yourself. There's going to be pressure from everyone else, so you've got to make sure that you really want it and you've got to go out there and expect to play well and put pressure on yourself to play well. And that's what he did. I took a lot from ‑‑ I mean, you don't want to really get into it so much, you want it so badly. But you've got to go out there with a belief that you're going to play well and put yourself in a position to win the golf tournament."
Good advice. Don't worry about the pressure from others. Just handle the pressure you put on yourself! And a huge lead is A LOT of pressure. Hopefully he won't let the lead derail his psyche this time.
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