Sky Sports Golf's Rob Lee shares his thoughts on Rory McIlroy in a column touching on McIlroy's Canada Open title success and chances ahead of the US Open at Brookline, live on Sky Sports; Lee tips McIlroy to return to world No 1, touches on other players in form and on LIV Golf
Monday 13 June 2022 12:24, UK
Rory McIlroy heads to the US Open at Brookline full of confidence after an entertaining Canada Open title win and as a big favourite, says Sky Sports' Rob Lee...
Rory does what Rory does. He's the most watchable player in the world right now.
When Tiger Woods dropped out of the public eye on a regular basis, Rory picked up the mantle and he is box office.
You just can't take your eyes off him. It's a rollercoaster ride every time you go into an event emotionally with Rory McIlroy, and boy oh boy does he deliver.
Unbelievable yesterday. The scenes, the crowd in Canada. It was like it was in Ireland with sunshine. It was amazing.
Rory was amazing and he didn't have it all his own way, he had to birdie the last two holes with a couple of shaky missed putts. But a 62, playing with Tony Finau and JT [Justin Thomas], they both shot 64 in the final round, it was golf of the very highest order.
Rory McIlroy must be going into this week's US Open absolutely bubbling, and full of confidence.
Most golf watchers would have criticised Rory up until yesterday for his pretty average wedge play. But yesterday his wedge play was just phenomenal, it really was.
He's obviously working on it a lot, and hasn't shown us much of the improvement, but yesterday it all came together and his wedge play was what won it for him.
Now you put that together with some of the driving that we saw this week, and he's going to be a runner and rider at Brookline.
Rory is a creature that rides a wave. Like a surfer, when he gets on top of that wave, he's very hard to shift, and all through his career he's had the same thing: he gets a run of high confidence.
And then, when he's strutting his stuff, I have absolutely zero doubt that Rory will get back to the world No 1 spot.
That's what he's consistently done. He drops off it, gets kind of lost a little bit, but he said himself after Covid, he's re-dedicated himself, practising hard again, and after what we saw yesterday, he must be very hopeful going into the US Open.
Jon Rahm had a week off last week, you've got to think he's always got a chance.
Scottie Scheffler is absolutely flying, Justin Thomas played very well and narrowly missed out to Rory.
Sam Burns is another phenomenal player who I think at some point can get to the world No 1 spot.
There's a lot of top-class players, and so many going into the US Open this week in Boston - which will be noisy and raucous - thinking they can win.
With the Saudis, it's a land grab. That's what they're doing. They're not trying to work with the tours, they're trying to establish a 14/15 tournament season, and what they want are the 48 best players in the world.
Which, obviously, is stripping those away from the DP World Tour and the PGA Tour.
I think the players that want to go there, and I don't care what you hear - whether they're going for this fantastic new formula, or growing the game, or feeding their families - the only reason they've gone there is for money.
And they should just say that. That's why they've all gone.
If that's what you want to do, you make your bed. And you go there and you don't come back.
The problem is a lot of the players that have gone to LIV are saying: 'Look what they're doing, they're not letting us come back and play.' Jay Monahan [PGA Tour Commissioner] is 100 per cent right.
LIV Golf CEO Gregg Norman said after the series opener at Centurion: "All I can say is the evolution of the game of golf has arrived and LIV is alive. For 27 years there's been a lot of obstacles put in our path, a lot of dreams have tried to be squashed, but they couldn't squash us and golf was always going to be the force for good out of all this.
"The fans wanted this and we wanted this for you, we wanted it for the players, the players' families and the caddies. We endured a lot out there on the Tour and the thing is, across the world, we heard from the fans and the fans wanted team golf.
"To see the way the players have reacted over the past three days, to see the performance on the golf course and all the excitement, it's a new energy to the game of golf.
"We've got a tremendous future ahead of us and this is just the start, trust me. We're going to supercharge the game of golf as we head to Portland, as we head around the world showing that golf can be a force for good."
Round-the-clock coverage from the US Open is live on Sky Sports this week, with over 40 hours of live action from the four tournament days. Watch live on Thursday from 1pm on Sky Sports Golf!
