Next stop world domination but on a glorious afternoon at Congressional Country Club the boy wonder of European golf was content with the prize he had just won. Rory McIlroy, 2011 US Open champion. How does that sound? Pretty good but for those who wanted more there was plenty.
How about Rory McIlroy, winner of the 2011 US Open championship with a record low score of 268, 16 under par. How about Rory McIlroy, winner of the 2011 US Open by a margin of eight shots. How about Rory McIlroy, who followed the disappointment of his Augusta National collapse two months ago with a display that will go down in the annals alongside that of Tiger Woods at Pebble Beach in 2000 – a performance acknowledged by many as the greatest in the tournament's history.
By such celestial standards McIlroy might have come up short but it was a close-run thing as the Northern Irishman exerted his dominance over a famously brutish course, as well as a collection of the world's best. YE Yang, a PGA Championship winner, Lee Westwood, the world No2, Sergio García, a fallen idol on the road to recovery, and Jason Day, one of the leading lights of the game's new generation – great players reduced to the status of Hollywood extras.
If only McIlroy had stayed at home this week, in Holywood, they would have contested a hell of a tournament. But he did not and they did not. Their consolation was a top-10 finish at a major championship and a ringside seat on the day potential greatness became greatness.
"Rory is going to have a great career, there is no question about that. He has got all the components,'' said Jack Nicklaus, the 18-time major champion who has become something of a mentor to McIlroy over the last few years. "He is a great kid. He is humble when he needs to be and confident when he needs to be confident. He's a got a great swing. He looks a little cocksure when he walks, which you need to have. I like it."
Nicklaus is not alone. Over the past four days the American public, and the American media, have treated McIlroy like one of their own. He has been cheered on to the driving range and cheered on the practice putting green. Most of all he has been cheered on the course, never louder than he was on Sunday. No wonder.
Eight shots ahead overnight, he immediately extended that with a birdie at the 1st, where he hit an exquisite approach shot to eight feet and holed the putt. Another great approach and another birdie at the 5th extended the lead into double digits. Thereafter it was simply a case of cruising home, although McIlroy could not resist a few flourishes.
At the 10th – a brutish par-three requiring the players to hit their tee shots over a vast expanse of water to the green – he hit a six-iron to three inches. He did not miss the putt.
So much for Westwood's contention, uttered in hope and not in malice on Saturday, that "big leads are sometimes hard to play with". Not when you play as McIlroy did.
Did the Northern Irishman drop a shot at the 12th hole? Yes, he did. Did it matter? Of course not. By then he was in full procession mode, smiling, waving to the crowds and, one has to believe, breathing deep sighs of relief at having finally reached the destiny many have predicted for him since his arrival on the golfing scene.
When he stepped on to the 18th tee he held an eight-shot advantage over Day, knowing that anything less than a sextuple bogey 10 would be enough to win. In the event he needed only four shots for a final round of 69 to add to his three previous rounds of 65, 66 and 68.
When the final putt dropped he fell into the arms of his father, Gerry, and when he stepped off the green it was into a hug from his friend and compatriot Graeme McDowell, who won this tournament last year. All hail golf's new global superpower, Northern Ireland.
McIlroy now has one major championship to his name. The temptation to ask how many more is hard to resist but the truth is no one knows. More than one? Five? Ten? Padraig Harrington swung for the fences, as they say in baseball, declaring that the Northern Irishman and not Tiger Woods presented the biggest threat to Nicklaus' record of 18 major championship victories.
Harrington is famously teetotal, never having let a drop of alcohol cross his lips, so it can assumed he was speaking from the heart. But surely this was hyperbole above and beyond the call of cross-border Irish co-operation.
Yet McIlroy is still only 22. He is fit, he is ambitious and, most importantly of all, he now knows he can win on the game's biggest stage.
The sky truly is the limit.
