Rory ready to open up Bethpage

YOU could, if you were so inclined, put it down to the precociousness of youth, but Rory McIlroy sees no reason why he shouldn’t win the US Open in his first appearance this week if most things fall into place.

Debutants don’t often win major championships and it hasn’t happened in this tournament since Francis Ouimet beat Harry Vardon in a play-off in 1913, an occasion subsequently recorded in one of golf’s finest books, “The Greatest Game Ever Played.” But McIlroy isn’t fazed by that stat or even that Tiger Woods has been installed as 7/4 favourite and seems to be in unbeatable form if the evidence of his victory in the Memorial at Muirfield Village the other week can be taken at face value.

“Hopefully I can go out and play the way I know I can and if that happens, I know I can challenge,” McIlroy claims. “As the 18th best player in the world, I should be able to challenge. It’s as simple as that. I probably wouldn’t be able to tell whether this is as hard a course as I’ve played until after Thursday when they’ve put the pins in for tournament play and we’ve played a competitive round.