Rory McIlroy's Recent Domination Shows It's Too Early for Jordan Spieth Rivalry

You’ve really got to hand it to Rory McIlroy.

Not only is the Irish-born 20-something a certified whiz with a bag of golf clubs, but he’s also shown a genuine ability this week to work a room—in particular, a media room.

Days after tacitly dismissing a rivalry with recent Masters wunderkind Jordan Spieth, McIlroy went ahead and set Quail Hollow Country Club ablaze with precisely the sort of round—11-under par 61 on Saturday—that sets folks who watch golf for a living scrambling to see who can best articulate the conflict.

Scott Heppell/Associated Press

Coming within two shots of the PGA Tour’s best 18 holes, it seems, breeds that sort of hyperbole.

Given that McIlroy and Spieth are ranked 1 and 2 in the world and have already had more major success than five of the top-10’s other eight players, it’s hardly a surprise that the post-Tiger Woods rank and file is eager to cast the blinged-out youngsters—at ages 26 and 21—as poster boys for the next generation.

And McIlroy did little to quiet the burgeoning din with his own weekend’s work, which included pre-cut rounds of 70 and 67 before Saturday’s record-challenger and a victory lap of a 69 on Sunday that yielded first-place honors at the Wells Fargo Championship—his 11th career triumph on the PGA Tour.

But in reality, claiming the two players are on level terms is to sell one of them well short.

While Spieth’s wire-to-wire win at the Masters was stirring and he indeed may become Woods’ heir apparent when it comes to U.S. marketing appeal, he’s got a quantum leap of tee-to-green ground to cover before he can legitimately be considered McIlroy’s primary competitive adversary.

Lest anyone forget, the rout at Augusta—where Spieth made the Northern Irishman, like everyone else, an also-ran—came only after an off-season’s worth of talk about McIlroy’s first chance to complete a career grand slam after he’d bagged both the British Open and the PGA Championship in a red-hot summer of 2014.

That pair made him the third-youngest to win four majors—trailing Woods and Jack Nicklaus—and the Wells Fargo win snapped a tie with Gary Player for most PGA Tour wins by a foreigner before age 30.

Sunday's victory also triggered the requisite gushing from the CBS broadcast crew.

A 340-yard drive on the par-four 17th prompted analyst Nick Faldo—a six-time major champ—to ask when designers would begin “Rory-proofing” their courses, while host Jim Nantz looked forward to this year’s British Open at St. Andrews and wondered, “How can Rory be beaten if he’s driving like this?”

Meanwhile, Spieth hasn’t exactly seized the moment since his own initial career-definer.

He was tied for 11th at the RBC Heritage a week after the Masters, then failed to emerge from his round-robin group at the World Golf Championships-Cadillac Match Play event, which McIlroy won by dispatching three opponents on the final day. Spieth's third post-major appearance was curtailed by a missed cut at the Players Championship, where McIlroy finished fourth and heard renewed mutterings about yet another push from yet another youngster, Rickie Fowler.

But rather than engage in sequential me vs. him, McIlroy keeps his aim on higher priorities.

“I'm pretty much paying attention to myself out there when I'm just sort of trying to get myself around the golf course,” McIlroy said. “Regardless of who I play with, that doesn't really change. I'll notice it because there's going to be a bit more buzz around the group and a bit more excitement.

“But to me, I'm out there and I'm focusing on my own game and trying to do the best that I can.”

It’s the sort of steel from which legendary careers are forged.

And though courses and contemporaries will apparently change by the week—and make no mistake, a prolonged run of rivalry-inducing excellence from Spieth still seems likely over the long haul—so long as McIlroy's prevailing mindset remains, one thing seems clear for the time being.

We’re all living in Rory’s world. And it feels like we’ll be here awhile.