Rory McIlroy fired a stunning six-under 65 to lead the US Open by three shots after the first round at Congressional.
Wippo: Clive’s ambivalence about golf means this will be short and rather one sided, but when have we seen the above headline before? The last major tournament, to be precise. The one where Rory McIlroy was leading the Masters for three rounds before capitulating so badly he barely scraped into the top 20 finishers.
The British are dominant in golf at the moment: Westwood, Donald, Casey, Rose, McDowell, Poulter, Fisher and the teenage Northern Irishman are all top class players and Tiger Woods is an also-ran. But only McDowell has converted that into a major win. Westwood, the German Martin Kaymer, and Donald have all spent recent weeks at the top of golf’s rankings – none of them has won a major; all of them could end up like Colin Montgomery – the nearly man for so many years and now just a fat Scotsman with a slightly lost demeanour. Men’s golf now resembles women’s tennis – not that it is full of butch lesbians from former Eastern Bloc countries, but in that no one has ever seen any of them win major tournaments. Caroline Wozniaki is only world #1 by virtue of the fact she wins modest local competitions, but she blows up like a badly serviced car whenever a major final looms.
You could say that to be top of your sport all you have to be is consistently average and you’ll be #1 before you know it. The logic doesn’t pan out in sport where it is essential to beat an opponent rather than a time. I can understand the fastest average time winning the Tour de France, that makes sense, sort of; plus you would normally expect the winner to have won a stage or two.
Going back to the lead item; I expect if McIlroy is still leading tomorrow night then he’ll lead going into the final day. If he goes on to win he will be heralded as a great player – which he undoubtedly is. If however, he repeats his Greg Norman implosion and loses in Maryland after holding a commanding lead, it may destroy him as a golfer completely.
Clive: Golf is a criminal waste of good countryside played by a bunch of sartorially unimaginative fascists. And that’s just the women.
sportdiscuss 