Metronome man: Rory McIlroy's 68 Saturday gave him a 14-under 199 total and an eight-shot lead on Y.E. Yang. McIlroy’s metronomic swing has worked perfectly this week. He’s hit 46 of 54 greens, three more than anyone else in the field. Only four other players have hit more than 40. Now he must “finish the race,” the mantra Tiger Woods repeated to himself as he closed out his dominant victory at the 1997 Masters.
McIlroy talked earlier this week about playing with more swagger after becoming tentative during his final-round 80 at the Masters. He seems to be accomplishing that objective.
“Having a little bit of attitude and a killer instinct, I think that’s what you need on the golf course, especially in the position that I find myself in,” McIlroy said. “You can’t get complacent. You have to — no lead is big enough, so you need to just keep going.”
McIlroy’s performance is already one for the record books:
• He broke Jim Furyk’s 54-hole US Open record by a single shot. Furyk shot 200 in the first three rounds of his 2003 victory at Olympia Fields.
• McIlroy is the first player to reach 14 under par in a US Open.
• His eight-shot lead is second only to Woods’ 10-shot lead after three rounds of the 2000 U.S. Open.
• If he wins, he’d be the first wire-to-wire winner at the US Open since Woods in 2002. That feat has been accomplished just six times. McIlroy also has a chance to become the first player since Lee Janzen in 1993 to win the US Open with four consecutive rounds in the 60s.
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