Rory McIlroy: 10 Ways the USGA Can Stop Him from Dominating the US Open

The USGA cherishes their championship to the point of snobbery, to where the worse the players are scoring, the more deserving the winner is of winning the US Open. Since 2004, the best score to win the Open has been minus-four.

To a point, the concept makes sense, players scoring minus-20 over four rounds makes the course ridiculously easy. However the winner scoring even par often leads to a slow weekend of pars and not a lot of excellent shot making.

Congressional Country Club was supposed to provide a similar challenge, with the last champion, Ernie Els in 1997, winning with a total score of 276 (minus-four). Now, only halfway through this US Open, there is a 22-year-old making a mockery of the course and playing it like a chip and putt.

Rory McIlroy is playing incredible golf, and mostly stress free. He did do the same thing through 36 holes at the Masters, with a lead at minus-10. The Masters is usually a decent ground for minus-8 to minus-10 for 72 holes, and Charl Schwartzel won with minus-14. Nobody had ever even reached minus-13 at a US Open, until Rory on Friday. He is making Congressional and the USGA look foolish. The USGA doesn't like to be made foolish.

Cue the Incredible Hulk montage, as meetings are surely taking place to determine what the tournament officials can do to make the course much more difficult on the weekend and anger is green with cutoffs. Tiger won with minus-12 in 2000 at Pebble Beach, and last year Graeme McDowell last year won at even par, because of course modifications and text messages the USGA sent to Elin (just a working theory). They will take action and make sure Rory does not have an easy next 36 holes.

I have 10 ideas the USGA might not think of, but can work to create a more challenging tournament for every 22-year-old from Northern Ireland.

10. Rory's Saturday Morning Tee Time at 1:45 AM

 Since Congressional is not the average par-three lighted course, darkness may make his round a bit more difficult, especially if he hits one in the rough. His caddy is allowed to have a flashlight, but no fans are allowed to have any lighting devices. If nighttime is too difficult, the next item will help make it worse.

9. No Flagsticks 

There will be a little stick in the cup, sort of like they have in the putting green, but those will have little effect in assisting Rory at three in the morning. Rory and his caddie will just have to use their knowledge of the course in the first two days to try to remember where the greens are, hoping he hits his shots near the hole.

8. Constant second-round 18th-hole replays 

This is more of a clubhouse trick, but once Rory shows up at the course (if they aren't keen on the early morning idea), he is shown to a chair where he has to watch his 18th hole from Friday about 200 times. This should not only reinforce bad shot making and mistakes, but would take away from the time on the range. Just imagine if Kubrick ran a golf major.

7. House Building 

As we learned from the Masters, Rory can lose his cool if he hits a ball towards a house, as he did at No. 10 on Sunday in Augusta. The USGA doesn't have enough time to build homes on the course, so instead they rent out a huge lot of motor homes, and place them randomly on the course while McIlroy is playing. Rory and his caddie may argue that those are moveable objects, so the USGA just needs to knife the tires, since they will be the last group on the course. Being paired with Rory is not going to be fun.

6. The Ghost of Rodney 

This won't be easy since Rodney Dangerfield has been dead for years, but there have to be Rodney impersonators just killing in Branson. Fly one of those guys in, and treat Rory's round as if he's Ted Knight. Plenty of dancing, plenty of playings of the insanely fast version of Any Way You Want It. If that doesn't work, gophers and explosions should do.

5. Red Painting 

This will have to be completed with one of the trucks that paint highway lines. While Rory is waiting on the tee, the truck will come out and add a lot of red paint to the course. In the treeline, out of bounds. In the bunker, out of bounds. In the right half of the fairway, out of bounds. He's got to lose 11 shots to get back to par in two rounds, and the easiest way to add strokes is to add penalties.

4. Ban Rory's Clubs 

This ruling may affect a few others with the same manufacturer's clubs, but Rory is obviously using clubs that are too good and therefore must be illegal. So in fairness, Rory can choose to use the clubs of any other US Open winner, with one condition. FDR had to be alive when that other guy won the US Open. Let's see Rory reach a par-five in two with Sam Parks Jr.'s 1935 winning clubs. Sam must have made the USGA thrilled that year, as he won with 15 over.

3. Weather Machine

 The USGA has some sway, so what they need to do is make the short trip to the Pentagon, and ask to borrow the weather machine for the weekend. If conspiracies and secret technologies are true, this is the weekend to reveal the trump card. Sixty mile per hour winds, bring them on. Hail in June, the government is ready to show it off. Super Gamma Rays drying out the greens in milliseconds, no sweat.

2. Chair Shot / Heel Turn 

One of the oddest moments of the meltdown on the back nine at Augusta for McIlroy was when he walked off the course and was consoled by Shane McMahon. It would have been odder had it been Kamala, but just seeing the guy who was once thrown off the Titantron about 40 feet helping a golfer in need was interesting.

The USGA maybe can start an angle where McMahon is watching from the crowd, cheering him on, and just when it looks like he's ready to make a big putt, bam, chair shot to the back. Shane stands over Rory, throws the ball into the water and gives a big hug to Ye Yang. Kamala can splash him on the green to add insult to injury.

1. RoboTiger 

We learned from the historically accurate Robocop that if a person dies in the line of duty, he can be re-engineered and brought back to live to dominate the streets of Detroit and eventually teach at Syracuse. Robocop was made 24 years ago, the technology has to exist to be able to do this today.

Tiger's knee and ACL are shot, but he's still alive, making it that much easier to turn him into a kick butt golf cyborg. At first, the thought of a metallic person having a fluent stroke seems unlikely, but metal technology has improved greatly in 24 years. With the fact that the cyborg has laser vision installed, RoboTiger will be back to his dominance in no time.

Or the USGA could be evil and root for another Rory meltdown. That's no fun. Chair shots and Caddyshack reinventions and weather manipulation. That brings the viewers.

For more 2011 U.S. Open coverage, stay tuned to Bleacher Report for U.S. Open scores and leaderboard updates, and the latest news and analysis.