Whether it gets easier or harder from here on for McIlroy the golfing phenom is game to find out.
It's a beginning; nothing more, nothing less.
But the performance Rory McIlroy put in over four days at Congressional Country Club was straight out of Holywood, Northern Ireland, where the pubs were still serving late in the night, maybe even on their favourite son's tab.
The young upstart, embarrassed for all to see at The Masters just two short months past, regrouping and coming back stronger than before, ready to make amends for prior stumbles.
After a brief side trip to Haiti to check-in on the UN relief efforts and a dose of perspective, our hero arrived in Bethesda, Maryland, planted his peg in the ground at the U.S. Open and rather than quietly smother whatever ghosts have been haunting his psyche, McIlroy called them out one-by-one and slaughtered them in cold blood.
- McIlroy's U.S. Open win was the second by a native of Northern Ireland
- Graeme McDowell won a year ago at Pebble Beach
- The win is the fifth straight major championship victory by an international player
Birdies kept dropping and records fell with them, many of which belonged to Tiger Woods: Lowest scores at a U.S. Open after 36, 54 and 72 holes. Lowest score in relation to par; fastest player to double-digit numbers under par and a slew of others that would have been easier to explain had he been playing the Phoenix Open rather than the most rigourous championship in golf.
And in the end the only one that mattered: the first major championship for a man wearing a blue belt.
Perhaps fittingly, with Woods at home for Father's Day, nursing his ailing and rapidly aging knee, McIlroy seems ready to step into the void that has been the story in golf ever since Woods' life hit a fire hydrant.
It wasn't just a victory as it was a statement as vivid as graffiti on the nearby White House: the guard was changing; the ground was shifting, ready to swallow up an old legend and lift a new one onto the scarred rubble left behind.
"He's potentially the next Tiger Woods. He's that good. It's great to see him out there fulfilling his potential," said Graeme McDowell, the defending US Open champion and one of the members of the Irish posse who have taken a provincial pride in the star sprung from their home soil. "He's going to be a great ambassador for the sport. Will he achieve what Tiger was doing around 2000, 15 [actually 14] major championships to date or whatever he's got? Can he be that good? Yeah, potentially. He's got that potential."
He had that potential when he shot an opening round 63 at the British Open in 2010 and cratered with second-round 80 that limited him to a moral boosting tie for third. He had it at the Masters when he led by four strokes after 54 holes. There his great unraveling came when the then 21-year-old couldn't manage the scrutiny that came with the lead at Augusta, when he admits he was confused about whether to play it safe or keep knocking down pins. Out came the snap hooks and his famous triple-bogey at the 10th hole; a white flag raised so high the patrons covered their eyes.
Were we witnessing golf's next great or a less filling version of Greg Norman?
What happened at the 111th US Open at least makes for a more pleasing, compelling question. There have been shooting stars in the sport before – Johnny Miller, anyone? – but there are some undeniable truths regarding McIlroy's win: If he never picks up a golf club again his four days in Maryland will go down as one of the finest displays of ball-striking the sport has ever known.
He hit 86.1 per cent of greens in regulation at the major where driving accuracy is valued and tested more than at any other.
The win makes him the youngest U.S. Open champion since WWII, younger by three months than Jack Nicklaus in 1962 and two years and three months younger than Woods when he won his first US Open at Pebble Beach in 2000. He also became the youngest winner of any major in the last 80 years besides Woods who was 21 when he torched the field by 12 strokes at the Masters in 1997.
WATCH: Near-ace at No. 10
The youth and the dominance make the Tiger talk tempting, if cheap. Woods was younger and more dominant, it should be pointed out – his 12-under-par, 15-stroke win at Pebble in 2000 will probably never be approached and his 12-stroke win at the Masters in 1997 seems safe for all time too. And if McIlroy wins 13 majors of the next 13 years he'll only equal Woods' pace, not surpass it.
But we're a culture addicted to generational touchstones, determined to live in the era that the best walked the earth. So rather than let it happen we seek them out and anoint successors to greatness first and ask questions later.
It was an amazing performance, but all it means is McIloy's gone one step further than so many of the next big things have – the Charles Howells and the Adam Scotts and the Sergio Garcias and the rest. He went out and won himself a trophy; tweeting it for the world to see as any 22-year-old would; yet another US Open first, undoubtedly.
His collapse at the Masters? Not a scarring experience, it turns out, but one to learn from:
"I knew what I needed to do differently; I had clear picture in my mind of where my focus needed to be if I got in that position again," he said.
Rather than fold under pressure he birdied the opening hole of his first round. The turn is where his first major championship crashed in April after his triple bogey at the 10th, his birdie at the 10th on Sunday was a five-shot improvement and a clear message: That was then, this is now.
McIlroy now has to wrestle a beast called the future, where the spectre of Woods and his uncertain dominance will guard the cave where Jack Nicklaus lives; his every move on and off the course available digitally and in high definition. His win and the style of it means that the 22-year-old from Holywood can no longer assemble a win here and triumph there and look back on a body of work and pronounce himself pleased.
He's not so much on a career path as a moonshot, and we all know enough of those crash and burn.
But give McIlroy credit. He sounds game to try.
"Growing up and watching Tiger win his first major at 21 and go on and dominate like he has done for the past 15 years, I think everyone who grew up in the same era as me wanted to emulate him and do the same things," he said Sunday, major trophy in hand. "This is my first taste of major championship glory and I want to get some more now."
(Editor's note: This is the debut column on sportsnet.ca for veteran sportswriter Michael Grange. Check back often to read his insight and analysis surrounding the world of sports. Grange will also make regular appearances on Sportsnet Radio The FAN 590 & PrimeTime Sports.)
