Expectation weighing lightly on Rory McIlroy

Rory McIlroy is very much in character these days, the newest poster boy of golf.

Anyone travelling in from the airport to downtown Louisville can’t avoid him, as one giant billboard after another features the world’s number one’s image and that of an Omega watch on his wrist.

And yesterday at Valhalla Golf Club, he continued the theme in adopting the classic James Bond pose, again with the watch manufacturer – who happen to be one of his sponsors – as part of a corporate commitment.

However, it is what McIlroy does on the golf course – with clubs in hand – that is most impressive of all these days. He is on a winning streak, following up his British Open win at Hoylake last month with another masterclass in annexing the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational at Akron on Sunday.

As he moves on, with this week's US PGA Championship offering another Major prize, the 25-year-old Northern Irishman's task has been to keep his mind fresh and clear.

On Monday, McIlroy – aware of the need to keep any fatigue away – ditched his initial plans to play nine holes and instead went through the formalities of registering.

Day off

“I gave myself the day off, which I felt like I need, just to recharge a little bit . . . . emotionally and mentally, it’s more fatiguing after you win tournaments than it is physically. So just to give your brain and your head a day to rest is a good thing, to get back into it.”

Not that McIlroy actually wants to stay away from tournaments any time soon. Why would he? He can do no wrong, especially with his driver and increasingly his putter.

“All of these tournaments sort of going back-to-back, it gives you less time to think about it. You just get straight back into it,” said McIlroy, who returned to the world’s number position – for the first time since March 2013 – with his win in the Bridgestone.

Increasingly, McIlroy is the one who is raising the bar for everyone else. He has put on three kilos in weight – augmented by his gym programme – which has resulted in those powerful, long drives which have repeatedly left him standing 30 or 40 or more yards in front of other players on the fairways.

“I’m definitely hitting it longer over the past couple years. I’ve started to work harder in the gym and I’ve got stronger in certain areas of my body which I needed to.

“I’ve always had the speed and I’ve always had the power, but I haven’t really had maybe the strength or the stability to hold on to it my whole way through the swing. So working on a couple of different things in the gym has definitely helped.”

There’s talk of a new era, one dominated by McIlroy. The player hasn’t backed away from such talk. “Look, I said at the start of the year that golf was looking for someone to put their hand up and sort of become one of the dominant players in the game. I felt like I had the ability to do that, and it’s just nice to be able to win a few tournaments and get back to where I feel like I should be, which is near the top of the world rankings and competing in Majors and winning golf tournaments. I’m not necessarily sure you can call that an era or the start of an era, but I’m just really happy with where my golf game is . . . “

Fellow players

As recent history tells us, McIlroy is pretty darn good when it comes to competing at the US PGA. This is his sixth. He has never missed a cut. More than that, he has contended in four of the five previous US PGAs he played, winning at Kiawah Island in 2012. He has finished third-third-64th-first-eighth in those five appearances. This week, he has had fellow players come up to him in the locker room and tell him how the course is tailor-made for him. The respect is everywhere.

But, these days, it seems that every course is one that suits McIlroy. If there is a problem with any part of his game, it is probably in his bunker play.

In Akron last week, he only had a 25 per cent save record from greenside bunkers. Otherwise, he is in a zone of his own.

As he put it, “I think what’s going through my head when I approach each shot is just that shot . . . . it’s approaching every shot as if that’s the only shot you’re going to play that day, and putting everything into that and not getting ahead of yourself, thinking about your score or thinking about where you are in the tournament or on the leaderboard.”

He added: “When you talk about my game being in a certain zone, mentally it’s just in a good place on the course and I’m staying in the present. And that’s really where you’re seeing the sort of golf that I’m playing over the past few weeks.”