McIlroy on fast track to success

Just 90 weeks into his career as a professional golfer, Rory McIlroy has acquired the ultimate status symbol for a successful young man in a hurry — a 193mph Ferrari.

One of McIlroy's most enduring dreams came true when he picked up the supercar, a metallic Ferrari 340 F1, in Birmingham a few weeks back and drove it home to Holywood.

Yet this is just part of a sensational recent shopping spree by the 20-year old, who will take delivery next week of a new Audi RS6, another machine with a head-spinning top speed in excess of 150mph.

Together, these two high-performance cars would cost the well-heeled motorist £200,000-plus, a luxury which McIlroy, the hottest prospect in professional golf, can well afford after purring into golf's world top-20 in record time.

He has already banked £2.25m in prizemoney in just over 20 months campaigning on the world's professional fairways and at least as much again is likely to have come from lucrative contracts with sponsors like Jumeirah, Titleist and the Lough Erne Resort in Co Fermanagh.

McIlroy's eyes widen as he speaks of the thrill of driving a Ferrari and “how the corners come up on you so fast”.

Yet even his Ferrari's mind-numbing performance figures of 0-60 in four seconds would pale alongside the rocket-like acceleration rate it would require to propel McIlroy into first place at this week's US Open at Bethpage.

It's a measure of the preposterous speed with which the youngster's star has already risen in golf that one would even contemplate his chances of victory on his first visit to one of this sport's most demanding arenas.

Since amateur Francis Ouimet's astonishing US Open victory at Brookline in 1913, no debutant has won America's national championship.

Yet in the wake of Shane Lowry's stunning success at Baltray last month, we Irish have every reason to believe that golfing dreams can come true.

Doused by heavy rain this week, The Black Course at Bethpage is not the fiery monster of seven years ago, when Tiger Woods was the only player under par as he romped to a three-stroke victory over Phil Mickelson in one of the noisiest Major Championships of all time.

Stretched by 212 yards to 7426 for this year's tournament, Bethpage is uncomfortably long for many of the 156 players who tee it up in today's first round, while its deepest rough is entombing.

Rain will make it feel even longer, of course, but golf balls are less likely to run through relatively soft fairways and into trouble, especially in these enlightened times at the US Open when a couple of cuts of rough have to be crossed before real nightmares begin.

And greens, which in 2002 were the fastest Padraig Harrington ever played on, are more receptive this week than any US Open hopeful usually would dare to expect.

In short, Bethpage Black currently plays to the strengths of McIlroy, one of the European Tour's biggest hitters.

Of course, it also plays into the hands of every other power player who can keep his ball on the straight and narrow for the next four days, with Tiger Woods firmly ensconced at the top of the food chain.

Should Tiger ping his tee shots down the Bethpage fairways with the same consistency as he did at The Memorial a fortnight ago, nobody will be able to stop him taking his 15th Major title and a place alongside Ben Hogan and Bobby Jones on the short list of players to have successfully defended the US Open title.

Woods proved at Muirfield Village that his recovery is complete from reconstructive knee surgery performed in the wake of last June's staggering victory at Torrey Pines.

In finding all 14 fairways that Sunday, and 49 out of 56 over four rounds at Memorial, Tiger looked ready to re-establish the dominion he enjoyed over world golf as he won seven of 11 Major Championships in the run-up to Bethpage '02.

While the opposition undoubtedly has grown stronger in that time, Tiger himself is comprehensively a better, more rounded and experienced player and human being than seven years ago.

Marriage. Parenthood. The loss of his father. Several lengthy visits to sport's school of hard knocks — ranging from the so-called 'Tiger Slump' at the Majors to years of pain and discomfort with his ailing left knee -— have helped make Tiger the new man he is today.

One suspects he's ready now to push on, exceed the 18 Majors won by Jack Nicklaus and establish beyond all doubt that Tiger Woods is, indeed, the greatest golfer of all time.

That process should begin this morning when Tiger tees it up with Ireland's three-times Major Champion Padraig Harrington and that earthy, irrepressible Argentine Angel Cabrera in formidable three-ball.

These guys hold all four of golf's Major titles. As reigning Open and US PGA Champions, one would expect Harrington to hold his own in this company but for a form slump precipitated, ironically, by the Dubliner's desire to improve his golf swing.

Harrington himself said “I don't know” when asked how he might fare at Bethpage after the confidence-sapping experience of four missed cuts in his last five outings on Tour. Crazily, he'll do well to make the 36 hole cut — but if he does, the Irishman should then be rated as one Tiger's biggest rivals.

As they did in 2002, New Yorkers will do their earnest best to encourage golf's Mr Congeniality, Phil Mickelson, especially in view of his wife amy's recent diagnosis with breast cancer.

The strain of recent weeks was plain on Mickelson's face when he visited the media centre yesterday. If the Californian somehow managed to win this week, it would exceed even Tiger's effort at Torrey Pines last summer.

The other day, Woods described the atmosphere at Bethpage seven years ago as “extraordinary, we hadn't seen anything like and probably never will”.

So far this week, it has not been the same and even if more people, over 50,000 are expected each day, will attend this year's Open, something truly special happened at Bethpage in '02.

That year's US Open gave the people of New York their first real opportunity after 9-11 to let the world know they were alive and kicking and as brash, noisy and boisterous as ever.

The mood among Tiger's rivals certainly is more defiant these days, with a dozen or more players confident that they can win, not least 2007 US Open champion Cabrera, his predecessor at Winged Foot Geoff Ogilvy, plus a few European pretenders, Paul Casey, Henrik Stenson and, okay, Sergio Garcia.

What of McIlroy. Let Ogilvy put you straight on the youngster's chances.

“If you wanted to pick out the 10 guys who are up there, Rory would be one of them,” said the Aussie, who won a herculean battle with McIlroy in the World Match Play semi-finals.

“He hits it high. He hits it longer than me. He's obviously not afraid. This is his first US Open but he'll do fine.

“It's not going to be too long before he becomes a fixture on the leaderboard at most Majors, he's that good a player.”

Tiger should win but who's to say another Irish golfing dream will not come true this weekend.

US Open Championship,

Live, Sky Sports 2, 3.00pm

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