We were spellbound by the golf.
Especially last night.
When Rory McIlroy hit his ball out of the bunker on the 5th hole, and was facing a putt he could miss, Jan got nervous.
I said, “He\’s not under any pressure here ! It doesn’t matter. He’s going to win anyway.”
Rory slotted that putt beautifully.
I said, “You won’t see golf like this again. He could finish 20 under !”
After nine holes, McIlroy was still nine shots ahead of Yang, the South Korean. On Hole 10, his second shot rolled back to six inches from the hole and he tapped in to go 17 under par !!!!!!
Hole 11 was a par and Hole 12 was a bogey and 13 was a par and by now he was 8 shots clear with 5 holes left to play and McIlroy was going to be the youngest US Open winner since 1923.
I said, “In tennis, you go into tournament and you play one opponent every day. If you win, you play another one tomorrow. In golf, you go out there and take on the 40 best players in the world every day.”
Rory McIlroy is eight months younger than Jack Nicklaus was in 1962.
And more than two years younger than Tiger Woods was in 2000.
It was mind-boggling, but also straightforward. McIlroy destroyed the second-longest US Open course ever. And he destroyed the field. He was astounding.
His dad Gerry said there was a big difference between Rory on the fourth morning at Augusta, where he had a horrific meltdown on his final round, and the fourth morning at Congressional.
He knew his son was going to win. Gerry said, “He learned a lot from the Masters.”
Mention of Tony Jacklin reminded me of 1970, a glorious summer when Jan lived in Highgate and on warm June evenings we would walk downhill past big rose bushes and scented shrubs to a new-build flat in Crouch End owned by my university pal Richard Uren, an accountant. Richard had a colour TV and invited us to watch the World Cup with him and his girlfriend Liliana, and we all saw Pele, Jairzinho,Tostao and Gerson turn it into a spectacular tournament.
That summer we also saw a Brit beat the Americans at golf, which was a very rare thing in those days.
Tony Jacklin amazed the Yanks by shooting 71-70-70-70 to win the US Open and his feat was world news 41 summers ago.
Rory McIlroy just shot 65-66-68-69.
His overall score was 268 for 72 holes.
He finished 16 under par and won by 8 strokes.
It was the lowest winning score in US history, beating Tiger Woods’s 12 under in 2000.
A 22-year old kid from Holywood, Northern Ireland, Rory McIlroy is the only golfer in US Open history to reach 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17 under par.
He was 6 under on Thursday, 11 under on Friday and 14 under on Saturday.
We all say a lot of things during a sports event, especially an exciting one.
Quite a lot of what we say is a bit wild, an unprintable over-reaction.
Time will tell whether I was right to shout, “You won’t see golf like this again!”