The US Open has always placed a premium on experience and know-how, making it perhaps the toughest of the four majors for young bloods to win. This year’s 111th edition at Congressional Golf Club outside Washington will be no different and will test to the full the abilities of emerging talents like Italy’s Matteo Manassero, Japan’s Ryo Ishikawa and Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland. The trio’s build-ups to the year’s second major have been vastly different. While 18-year-old Manassero elected to stay at home to compete in the Italian Open, 22-year-old McIlroy headed out to Haiti in his new role as a Unicef Ireland ambassador. The 19-year-old Ishikawa, meanwhile, has been struggling for form and then found himself embroiled in a spot of bother over a driving licence offence. McIlroy, already well established in the world top 10, chose to visit Haiti as his first official overseas trip as a Unicef ambassador to see for himself the ongoing relief efforts for those hit by the devastating January 2010 earthquake. But he arrived back in Washington on Wednesday and quickly got down to the business of preparing for the tournament. His first impressions were positive. “Saw Congressional GC for the first time today … Great golf course, gotta draw the ball a lot so hopefully that will suit me,” he wrote on his Twitter account. The Ulsterman will be keen to finally put behind him the memory of his last round in a major on US soil, when he carried a four-stroke lead into the final round of the Masters in April only to slump to a horrendous 80. He certainly has shown no signs of a Masters hangover since then and Englishman Justin Rose says that he is one player who should have a chance of winning at Congressional. “It’s the level of consistency that he seems to churn out, top-five, top-10 finishes, that’s impressive,” he said. “I think learning to win is a skill and something that he has, and something that he’ll only get better at doing. But the level of consistency at which he’s playing for such a young guy, I think, is impressive.
