Rory McIlroy will have to start putting much better over the next three days if he is to add to his haul of major championship victories here at Chambers Bay after a disappointing opening round at the 115th US Open Championship.

There is a word that will crop up frequently this week in relation to the 2015 US Open at Chambers Bay not normally associated with this major, and there is an Irish company to thank for that.

JOHNNY MARR has stopped running from the past. Ten years ago, the ex-Smiths guitarist refused to play his old songs on tour. When he visited Dublin’s Academy, last March, he led his band through half a dozen Smiths standards; for his encore rendering of ‘How Soon Is Now?’, grown men were hugging.