Rory McIlroy's emphatic Canadian Open win will send confidence soaring for US Open, says Paul McGinley

Paul McGinley has welcomed Rory McIlroy’s emphatic return to peak form, declaring that the manner in which he “blew away” the top-class field on Sunday night was exactly what his countryman required as he tries to win his first major in almost five years at this week’s US Open.

McIlroy won the Canadian Open by seven strokes, the biggest margin in 62 years of the tournament, and the ease and, in his own words, “freedom” with which he pulled clear in a final-round 61 bodes well for his challenge at Pebble Beach.

McIlroy has missed his past three cuts at the US Open yet, according to McGinley, making the weekend will be the very least of the 30-year-old’s ambitions following his 22-under total.

“I’ve been saying regularly that in the last six months his game is as good as I’ve ever seen him play,” McGinley said. “He used to be hot or cold and what he needs to get back is a little bit more of the hot-and-cold player. Consistency in a professional golfer is overrated, you want to be a little bit like Brooks Koepka, you want to be all duck or no dinner.

“Early in his career he had that ability to go into overdrive and we hadn’t seen recently that from him. Even when he won the Players this year it wasn’t an overdrive performance. He had not blown the field away the way he used to.”

All this changed at Hamilton Golf Club. There will still be question marks because, as McGinley points out, US Open host venue Pebble Beach cannot be defined as the perfect venue for McIlroy.

“Pebble is not a Rory McIlroy golf course,” McGinley, who is in California as an analyst for Sky Sports, said. “He’s going to have to play really well to contend around here – and historically he’s never played well on really tough golf courses. Even the US Open that he won [at Congressional in 2011], he did so with 16 under par.

“So it’s going to be tough for him but if he goes with [his stated tactic of] four wedges that’s a pretty good strategy. Rory knows he’s better than nearly everybody in the game and that brings a lot of pressure. But he’s an inspirational player and of all the players he’s probably the one who is most influenced by being confident or not, and that comes from performances.”

For his part, McIlroy who leapfrogged England’s Justin Rose to move into world No 3 and regain the mantle as Europe’s top-ranked golfer, sounds full of self-belief. He believes he has recovered the fearlessness that helped him win four majors by the time he was 25 and establish himself as the

undisputed No 1.

“This is what I can do; I’ve been able to do it before,” McIlroy said. “It was nice to get back to that feeling, as it’s been a while since I won by a number of shots, going back to Quail Hollow in Charlotte in 2015. I won by seven there. Yeah I won at the Players [in March] but I sort of had to grind it out. This week I was free. I trusted myself 100 per cent and I hit the shots when I needed to and this gives me more confidence than the one at the Players because I played the way I did.”

McIlroy is determined to stay aggressive, regardless of the tight conditions, thick rough and renowned greens at Pebble Beach.

“When you get to the US Open set-up it can make you play carefully, a little tentatively and try to guide it down the fairways,” he said. “But if I’ve learnt anything in Canada, it’s that my game is good enough and swing is good enough that I can play with freedom. Look, I’m not going to go and hit a driver on every hole, but when I pull a club out of the bag I’ll make a really good, committed swing and know for most part it should work out for me. I’m confident, for sure.”