McIlroy wins over toughest crowd in the game

IT IS not a given that being one ofthe world’s best golfers at a US Open championship is enough to earn a golfer the undying love of the American golfing public.

In 1986 at Shinnecock Hills, Greg Norman was heckled by a fan after a double bogey that prompted the yob to call him a choker. The Great White Shark went in search of blood, heading straight for the heckler and challenging him to meet him in the car park afterwards.

At Bethpage in 2002, Sergio Garcia was the victim of merciless heckling from a boisterous and boozed up New York crowd, Vijay Singh copped some flak at Olympia Fields in San Francisco a year later and back in Gotham, Angel Cabrera was distracted by a Spanish-speaking heckler as he took a tee shot at Winged Foot in 2006.