Weekly Recap: McIlroy Blows By Field

Rory McIlroy won the RBC Canadian Open by seven strokes in dominating fashion on Sunday. That would seem to be the perfect prelude for McIlroy to this week's U.S. Open, right?

Well, yes. And no.

Yes, because, duh, winning by seven strokes anytime anywhere, much less in a field that includes the Nos. 1 and 2 players in the world, Brooks Koepka and Dustin Johnson, is indisputable evidence that your game is on form. (And McIlroy is now third in the rankings, his highest standing in two years, since after the 2017 U.S. Open.)

But winning the week before a major and then winning the major? That just doesn't happen very often. How often? Well, it seems that it's happened only 12 times in the 85 years. We spotted a story on PGATour.com from 2008 saying it had happened 10 times since 1934. And then we checked from 2008 onward and found it has happened two more times.

Interestingly, the last player to do it was none other than … Rory McIlroy. That's right, McIlroy won the 2014 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational and then the next week captured the PGA Championship. (Those wins completed what actually was a three-wins-in-four-week stretch, as McIlroy won the Open Championship two weeks before the Bridgestone.)

So, not only can it be done, albeit sparingly, it can and has been done by McIlroy.

There are some similarities between Hamilton Golf and Country Club and Pebble Beach, which bodes well for McIlroy. Both are short tracks where distance isn't paramount but accuracy is. Of course, Pebble will play far harder, and accuracy will be even more critical. Judging by McIlroy's game at Hamilton, he's up to the task.

When you win by seven strokes, pretty much every part of your game is going well. Not only did McIlroy lead the field in driving distance, he was a very impressive sixth in accuracy off the tee. Perhaps even more impressive, he ranked sixth in strokes gained: putting – and that was with negative strokes in Thursday's first round.

U.S. Open tracks are unlike all others, and they have proved vexing to even the greatest of golfers. McIlroy has won one Open before, at Congressional in 2011. But he shockingly has missed the cut in the past three  and also missed in 2010, when the Open was last played at Pebble. And he also missed the cut at the AT&T at Pebble back in February.

Winning a major is hard, even amid optimal play. Winning a major and expecting optimal play to be there a second straight week, well, that's a rare event. As McIlroy knows.

MONDAY BACKSPIN

Brooks Koepka
Koepka likes to play the week before a major. So, mission accomplished. He tied for 50th and was never in the mix. Interestingly, he ranked 50th in driving accuracy, which of course won't get the job done at Pebble Beach and is uncharacteristic for one of the more accurate of the long hitters. Regardless, virtually nothing that happened at the Canadian Open could've knocked Koepka from his perch as U.S. Open favorite, and nothing did.

Dustin Johnson
Johnson tied for 20th. Unlike with Koepka, there aren't many weeks that Johnson is not part of the conversation, but he wasn't this time around. Again, nothing that happened at Hamilton will keep Johnson from being among the top two or three favorites at Pebble. But if there was one statistical concern from the week, it was that Johnson ranked 60th in the field in strokes gained: putting.

Shane Lowry
The Irishman is heading in all the right directions entering the Open. He was corunner-up behind McIlroy. It continues a trend of playing well in 2019. Lowry also has a great history at the Open, in majors in general and at Pebble Beach. He is up to No. 32 in the world, his best position in about three years.

Webb Simpson
Simpson tied for second with Lowry. He's another guy we think can do well this week, even though he's never been great at Pebble. We thought that before the Canadian Open, and now we offer another reason why: Simpson, who has been amid a down putting season, certainly far below what he did last season, ranked first in the Hamilton field in strokes gained: putting. Simpson is again inside the top-20 in the world rankings, at No. 19.

Matt Kuchar
Kuchar had the lead going into the weekend, but nothing and no one was going to get in McIlroy's way. So we don't hold that against Kuchar, who wound up tied for fourth. While Kuchar is having a great season, he's never done much at the U.S. Open. He has only one top-10, though it happened to be at Pebble Beach in 2010.

Brandt Snedeker
Snedeker actually did McIlroy one better, at least for one round. McIlroy shot 61 on Sunday, but Snedeker turned in a scintillating 60 on Friday. He wound up tied for fourth with Kuchar, and was fourth in the field in strokes gained: putting. We liked Snedeker's chances at Pebble prior to Canada and of course we still do. Snedeker is a two-time winner of the AT&T and has a history of high finishes at U.S. Opens.

Justin Thomas
We check in on Thomas, who missed the cut at the Memorial in his first event back from a wrist injury. He made it through all four rounds this time and tied for 20th. Thomas has never played Pebble in competition, but he does have some good recent results at U.S. Opens. Still, we can come up with maybe a dozen guys we think have a better chance than Thomas does this week.

Henrik Stenson
A tie for eighth was Stenson's best showing all year, which certainly will give him confidence heading into Pebble. You need accuracy off the tee and good tee-to-green game at the Open. The Swede led the field in Canada in driving accuracy, and he was third in strokes gained: tee to green. If Stenson can do all that this week, who knows – top-25? Maybe better?

Adam Hadwin
The Canadian finished solo sixth. The operative word there is "Canadian." It's been 65 years since a Canadian has won the national championship, so this has to be considered a great week for Hadwin and Canadian golf. Further, as one of the top-three finishers not already exempt into the Open Championship, Hadwin got into the field at Royal Portrush.

Graeme McDowell
And now for the feel-good story of the week. McDowell has played Royal Portrush since he was a boy. The Open Championship will be played there for the first time since 1951. McDowell had yet to qualify. In fact, he came to the 72nd green on Sunday needing to sink a 30-foot putt to tie for eighth and, thus, become one of the top-three finishers not already exempt into the Open. The putt went in, and McDowell is going to Royal Portrush. … But first McDowell is going to Pebble Beach, where he won the U.S. Open nine years ago. It's hard to say the 39-year old can contend, but he obviously has played well there, and a top-25 seems within reach. He's on the cusp of rejoining the top-100 in the world rankings, at No. 101.

Sergio Garcia
There is no feel-good story here. Garcia missed the cut at the Masters. He missed the cut at the PGA Championship. And he missed the cut in Canada. Garcia has missed the cut in his past seven majors, so how can we expect anything good out of him at Pebble?