Rory McIlroy has had a tough year and he will try to counter that with a good performance at the U.S. Open to try and win a major for the third straight year and he will get started off with a tough group, as he will play with Tiger Woods and Adam Scott as the top three players in the world are grouped for the first two rounds.
McIlroy, whose resounding wins at the 2011 U.S. Open at Congressional and last year's PGA Championship on Kiawah Island and a climb to the number one ranking cemented him as golf's next prodigy following in the wake of Tiger Woods. He launched this season by signing a $100 million-plus sponsorship deal with Nike, making a ball and golf club equipment change from the Titleists he used when romping to eight-stroke victories in both his major triumphs.
The strains of expectation and frustration with his form led McIlroy to a serious faux pas on the playing course in March when he walked off mid-round at the Honda Classic in exasperation at his poor play and later blamed the exit on an aching tooth. Great talent can be a burden as much as a blessing and great expectations weigh on Northern Irishman Rory McIlroy at this week's U.S. Open at Merion in the Philadelphia suburbs. Twice he has changed management firms in the last two years, having now formed his own management company with his father, Gerry, taking a key role.
McIlroy will have to deal with the harshest spotlight imaginable over his first two rounds at Merion. McIlroy and Woods have played together 12 times in competition, but never before in a major. Woods has recorded the better score on nine occasions.
Woods, dealing with his own five-year drought without adding to his majors haul of 14, knows what McIlroy is capable of.
He is grouped with Woods and Australian Adam Scott, the reigning Masters champion, in the U.S. Golf Association's feature threeball made up of the world's top three ranked players. Last year, the Northern Irishman went into a mid-season tailspin missing four cuts over five tournaments before dominating the PGA Championship at the Ocean Course.
