The old cliché tells us there are more than two ways to skin a cat. It's true. As Rory McIlroy strode on to the first tee shortly before 7.40am for the first round of the 141st US Open, his fellow Northern Irishman, Graeme McDowell, was a rather quieter presence. Almost five hours later, the roles and postures had reversed: G-Mac had stepped into the spotlight!
For the guts of that time on a course, which mercifully showed little of the fire and brimstone of the practice days, at least for those blessed with early alarm calls, McIlroy aggressively fired drives and sometimes irons off the tee and time after time took on the flag, while G-Mac and Webb Simpson, his two playing partners, plotted strategic and conservative routes to their quarry.
This is a numbers game, though. As impressive as McIlroy’s ball-striking was, compromised only by some loose approach shots and a putting stroke that repeatedly left the ball shaving the hole, McDowell was the player who signed for the lower score: a 68, two-under, compared to a 71. Two ways to skin a cat indeed!
For sure, with the moisture on the greens making them a softer, more receptive proposition than they had been in the build-up days, the leopard had changed is spots.
On a course where McDowell had envisaged that birdies would be few and far between, he found himself in bonus territory as early as the par-five fifth, where the tee markers had been advanced to encourage players to go for the green in two. He didn’t need to be asked twice.
Bunkered
McDowell – who had suffered his only bogey of the round on the fourth, where he was bunkered on his approach – hit what he deemed to be “an okay drive” but followed with an exquisitely struck three-wood approach from 248 yards which pitched in to the perfect spot on the green and stopped 12 feet from the flag. He duly rolled in the eagle putt.
In contrast, McIlroy, who had watched as birdie chances on the first, second and fourth holes refused to drop, was bunkered there in two and only managed a par.
And, for the next half hour or more, McIlroy was repeatedly drawn to those greenside traps. On the sixth, for a bogey. On the seventh, for another bogey. It would be the par-three ninth before McIroy managed to find a birdie.
“We got lucky,” McDowell would observe after his round, two hands on hips and with the demeanour of a man who had set out to do a job.
No nonsense talk.
“In practice, the course seemed very firm . . . I guess the USGA were really relying on some rain (overnight), which didn’t come. I’m assuming they put some water on this place this morning and we were able to take advantage of that and actually think about getting at some flags.”
To McDowell’s credit, even if there were times when McIlroy seemed to be firing his drives into a different post zone, he stuck to his plan.
Firstly, he found fairways. In fact, the only fairway he missed all day was his five-wood tee-shot on the 18th which pulled left into the waste areas.
Undeterred, he found the edge of the green in two and his birdie attempt narrowly missed. McIlroy, in contrast, drove aggressively to set up a birdie attempt, which he duly converted.
Patience
McDowell felt the most important aspect of mounting and maintaining a challenge was patience: “It’s about getting my head in the right place, understanding this golf course is not going to give you many birdies. It’s kind of the old cliché, not waiting for the golf ball to make you happy. You’re trying to get the attitude right from the word go.
“This golf course is difficult and good shots are going to finish in bad spots and you’ve just got to really, really grind hard . . . and prepare yourself mentally for the fact that you’re just not going to get a pat on the back very often on this golf course,” said McDowell.
From that point of view, it was very much a case of job done! Well, one-quarter of the job, anyway.
For McIlroy, there was an admission of being “fairly content” but knowing also that those back-to-back bogeys on six and seven could have ruined his round. “When it looked like the run could have gotten away from me, I was able to come back a little bit (with a birdie on nine), which was nice and played a solid back nine,” said McIlroy, who felt that his pace putting was the part of his game that most let him down.
“I played beautifully from tee-to-green and really happy with that. I’m just going to work a little bit on my speed on the greens and if I can get that dialed in then pretty confident going into the next three days,” said McIlroy.
But there was also a tip of the cap to his fellow-Ulsterman, who more often than not was a distance behind him off the tee-shots.
“This is his ideal sort of tournament, you know, grinding it out, and the winning score not being too much under par and he (McDowell) knows how to do that well,” added McIlroy.
