HOYLAKE, England — Rory McIlroy is the new Tiger Woods.
No, McIlroy does not have the volume of hardware Woods possesses wherever he keeps his 14 major championship trophies.
No, McIlroy has not had the same kind of monumental impact Woods had in changing the mainstream popularity of golf and the exponential increases in television contracts and tournament purses.
But if McIlroy’s British Open triumph on Sunday at Royal Liverpool was evidence of one thing that elevates him to Woods status it is this: When he is at his best, no one is his equal.
Remember all the talk back in the day about Woods and his “A-game,’’ and how if he was on then no one could match him? This is where McIlroy is now.
As you ponder McIlroy’s accomplishment at Royal Liverpool, winning the Claret Jug and securing the third leg of a career Grand Slam at age 25 in a career that seems like it began about 15 minutes ago, consider this: McIlroy had a four-shot lead with 18 holes to play at the 2011 Masters.
So he’s thatclose to being the youngest player ever to own a career Grand Slam, a feat only six players have accomplished — Ben Hogan, Bobby Jones, Gary Player, Gene Sarazen, Jack Nicklaus and Woods.
McIlroy, particularly with a new-found focus and hunger he’s found for the game recently after losing it for a little more than a year, is good enough that his best cannot be beaten.
Woods, when he was dominating, was better than almost every other player at most things. Now, you’d be hard-pressed to say he’s better than everyone else at anything, which — along with the fact he’s three months removed from back surgery — is as much a reason as any he posted his worst career finish in a major this week at 69th, 23 shots behind McIlroy.
McIlory is not 23 shots better than Woods on most days, but he is now better than his boyhood idol.
“I think his ‘A game’ right now is pretty much almost unbeatable,’’ fellow Northern Irishman Shane Lowry said of McIlroy. “His best golf is almost unbeatable.’’
Do those words sound familiar, Tiger Woods fans?
How about these words from Adam Scott, who’s competed against both Woods and McIlroy at their respective bests?
“He doesn’t have any weaknesses and he has more strengths than anyone else,’’ Scott said.
Woods, while impressed with his protégé, did not sound like he was in a rush to anoint McIlroy as the next greatest thing in the game, offering tempered praise.
“When he gets it going, he gets it going,’’ Woods said. “When it gets going bad, it gets going real bad. It’s one or the other, very similar to what Phil [Mickelson] does. He has his hot weeks and he has his weeks where he’s off. That’s just the nature of how he plays the game.
“If he drives it like he is right now and he’s making the putts again, [which is] something that’s been missing a little bit — he hasn’t really made the amount of putts that he did a couple of years ago — but now he’s starting to make those 10- to 15-footers. That turns rounds around.’’
It makes the great players greater. Woods should know, because no one has been greater than he was in his reign of dominance, and because making those round-changing putts is something that’s been missing from his game for years.
This is not testimony McIlroy is about to be (or will ever be) as dominant as Woods was in the late-’90s and early-2000s. That’s not likely to happen because the game is deeper with better players — thanks to Woods.
“We used to say there will never be another Nicklaus, and then along came Tiger,’’ Mickelson said. “You never want to discount the possibility of someone coming along and dominating, but nobody has really asserted themselves week in and week out the way Tiger did for such a long period of time. We’ll have great performances, like Rory this week, like [Martin] Kaymer at the U.S. Open, and so forth.
“But it’s very hard to do that week in and week out the way Tiger did.’’
Depending on how hungry and focused he remains, McIlroy is the one player in the game who can at least separate himself from the pack.
“I want be to be that guy,’’ McIlroy said. “I want to be the guy that goes on and wins majors and wins majors regularly. I’ve won majors and had chances before to kick on from there. I feel like there’s a lot more left in me.’’