Sweet Success

McIlroy's lusty celebration after holing a long birdie putt at the last was only the latest endearing moment from a gent everyone seems to like. He is unlikely to ever work blue on network TV, as Woods often does. "I realize that I am a role model for a lot of people, and a lot of kids do look up to me," McIlroy says. "I try to do my best in that regard and put myself across as honestly and as modestly as possible."

But like the young Tiger, McIlroy has learned that at times he needs to be cold-blooded to protect his career. Last fall he made headlines by canning his high-profile agent, Chubby Chandler, because McIlroy felt he was not getting enough care in a large stable of high-profile players. His new agent, Conor Ridge, has become comfortable saying no, albeit in the politest possible manner. "He's swaddled in cotton wool," says Ridge. "We've cut everything way back. Our job is to cocoon him so he can do what he was put on this earth to do."

As different as McIlroy and Woods may be, Rory was Tiger-like on Sunday with his ruthless play. McIlroy was playing the par-5 2nd when Ian Poulter birdied his fifth straight hole to start his round. Puffed up with what McDowell calls a "trademark strut," Poulter had sliced McIlroy's lead to a lone stroke. After his worst swing of the week, McIlroy was under a tree, his ball on wood chips. But he played an all-world wedge to eight feet and buried the putt for birdie. McIlroy never gave Poulter—or anyone else—another opening.

Even after the outcome was no longer in doubt, he never let up, which was reminiscent of the way Woods grinded so hard during the final round of the 2000 U.S. Open despite a double-digit lead, simply because he had vowed not to make a bogey. "That was a statement," Keegan Bradley said of McIlroy's cutthroat final round. "That was a message to the rest of us."

Harrington was happy to flesh it out: "Tiger turned up for a few years, and if he brought his A-game the rest of us struggled to compete. Rory is showing that with his A-game, everybody else is going to struggle to compete with him."