‘Focused’ Rory McIlroy hones in on another U.S. Open title

Rory McIlroy may have mocked USGA executive director Mike Davis for warning some weeks ago that anyone hoping to win this week’s U.S. Open better get his butt to Chambers Bay early and often.

“What’s Mike Davis’ handicap,” McIlroy asked sarcastically back in May.

The world No. 1, who got his first licks in at the links-style track outside Tacoma, Wash., over the weekend, isn’t sneering now. In fact, of all the guys cramming for the toughest mental test in golf, McIlroy may be studying the hardest.

McIlroy played two consecutive 18-hole practice rounds on Saturday and Sunday, and was on the practice range smashing balls late into the evening on Tuesday following another on-course session.

He was back at it early Wednesday morning. Perhaps the four-time major champion was sending a message to his fellow competitors that he was rested and ready following those two straight missed cuts, the second coming on his native Northern Ireland’s Royal County Down at the end of five consecutive weeks of play.

“I think it was my mind had enough golf rather than my body,” he told reporters on Tuesday. “I sort of had to get back, especially after playing at County Down, just to get back to playing my normal game, hitting shots the way I like to see them, swinging the way I want to swing ... All I tried to do last week was just get back to playing my normal game, and I think that’s the way I’m going to do well this week.”

For sure, the Robert Trent Jones Jr.-designed Chambers Bay came as something of a surprise to McIlroy, who professed to fancy the Puget Sound venue (despite his 2014 British Open win, he’s not a huge fan of hard, fast links golf).

“I really like the golf course,” he said. “I think it sets up well for my game. You’ve got to be aggressive off the tee. You’ve got to hit driver. I think it’s a course where you’re going to see a lot of guys hit fairways and hit greens. But when you hit greens, you can still be 50, 60 feet away from the pin. So if you can drive the ball well and your pace putting and long putting is sharp, I think they’re going to be two really key things this week to be successful.”

With six-hour rounds on unfamiliar territory that will produce unpredictable bounces and require acute attention to detail -- especially around and on the severely undulating putting surfaces -- patience will be another critical factor at Chambers Bay. McIlroy, who owned his inconsistent play by noting he preferred “three wins and three missed cuts (to) six top-10s,” is not renowned for his ability to grind out rounds.

This week, though, the winner of two PGA Tour events in 2015 (at Harding Park and at Quail Hollow in May) is the odds-on favorite to add a fifth major title to his resume.

“He had that look in his eyes that I saw at Match Play in San Francisco, that I saw in Charlotte at Quail Hollow for the Wells Fargo Championship,” Golf Channel’s Todd Lewis said on Wednesday.

Dave Stockton, McIlroy’s putting coach, believes the player who’s toughest mentally at Chambers Bay will win the tournament. The short-game guru likes what he’s heard from his student.

“All the guys playing obviously are physically capable of winning, but it’s the ones that are strong enough to withstand the really good shots they hit that end up in a terrible spot but don’t let it affect them are the ones who are going to have a better chance to win,” Stockton told SB Nation by phone on Thursday. “He [McIlroy] sounds, when I talked with him this week, he’s extraordinarily confident and he is ready to win the U.S. Open, mentally.”

Lewis noted that McIlroy graciously rebuffing him for a quick, two-question interview after his round on Sunday was indicative of how single-minded he was in pursuit of his second U.S. Open title.

“We know how cooperative Rory McIlroy has been,” Lewis said. “He looked at me, very politely said, ‘Hey, Todd, I just want to stay in my element right now, I’m going to do all my media on Tuesday.’”

That -- plus teeing off at 5:40 p.m. local time Tuesday to simulate playing late on the weekend -- was an indication to Lewis of how focused McIlroy is this week.

“He expects to be in the final groups Saturday and Sunday,” Lewis said.