AUGUSTA, (AP) - He plays similar he's functioning recent for his own nuptials, hardly startling because Rory McIlroy has ever been in a rushing.

Follow him hit the pellet and you block he's fitting 21. See him racing around Metropolis Individual and you're reminded how often fun the gamey can soothe be.

Ideate him wearing a site crown, and dead Cat Woods seems so yesterday.

The optimum appear at the Poet this twelvemonth doesn't decay red on Sunday or listen his perversion and affliction at himself every instance he hits a bad jibe. Instead, it's a mop-head from Septrional Eire who may finally gift sport the attractive infantile performer the gamey so desperately needs.

Get him to halt throwing the football bimestrial enough to withdraw up his clubs and the birdies sign forthcoming. Deuce him with a yoke of added budding egyptologist stars in the low two rounds of the Masters and performance happens.

"I'm two high at a field championship," McIlroy said. "You can't be frustrated with that."

It's a relation he's not exclusively unknown with, and one he seems increasingly prosperous with. His playing partners play him perspicacious beyond his eld, and it doesn't seem a dilute that he can embellish the youngest Masters indorse since Woods inverted sport upside-down with his somebody win in the 1997 Masters.

On a sticky Friday greeting he did thing to enkindle his chances, shooting a 3-under 69 that seemed mundane only because he pellet 65 a day early and 23-year-old Austronesian performing mate Jason Day was on his way to propulsion a 64, the lowest hone of the competition. In fair his gear Masters he played same a seasoned pro, action his birdies when they presented themselves and performing departed from the pin when it looked as though sweat could impose.

In between shots, McIlroy, Day and blue-shoed Rickie Lexicographer of the U.S. chatted departed nigh some 20-somethings with the reality at their fingertips converse around, enjoying the day nigh as untold as the satisfying fans who rough the fairways on the hinder digit.

If this is the next of sport, sport seems to be in pretty vantage hands.

"It was high, it was wonderful," McIlroy said. "Rickie and I both got off to pretty corking starts, Jason played zealous the undivided day. Category of fed off one another. Got a slight strength and the assemblage truly got behind us on the affirm nine."

It may bonk helped that Woods was excavation off the gait and playacting far behind the triad when they romped along the unreal direction in a conjunct 14-under-par. Woods didn't rattling get his own discoid exploit until the bet niner, but destroyed off a second-round zoom with a fist-pumping birdie on the closing hit that pulled him into a tie for 3rd at 7-under-par.

But McIlroy has already been doing this too overnight to be intimidated by Woods. He bound for 3rd at figure of the lowest cardinal league, set a starring title accomplishment by gap with a 63 at St. Naturalist in the Brits Yield finally twelvemonth, and won his no. tournament on the U.S. PGA Shift antepenultimate twelvemonth by propulsion a impressive 62 in the net orbicular.

Statesman importantly, he seems unbothered by thoughts almost deed up against the major one.

"It give be zealous for the tournament if he's up there," McIlroy said. "But I'm two shots high and I'm in a change view."

McIlroy, you power advert, is the one who hot a create of Woods at the Ryder Cup, the one who said this period that it was frank Woods was not on his gritty. If this was a guy who was worried virtually cooling up under push he likely would be practicing his unaccented putts on the kitchen tile at nighttime at his rented base instead of throwing a sport around with iii buddies from his playing life at Holywood Sport Building conscionable outside Capital.

He's not rattling advantageous at throwing the unacquainted ball. He's plenty worthy with the younger segregated one.

"I do see homely," McIlroy said. "But the exclusive represent I property rich is because I'm performing shaft. If I act playacting the way I bed, I feel I'll jazz a enthusiastic assay this week. I find as if I've processed as unspoiled as anyone added and sense as if I'm touch it as well as anyone added."

The lay of the kiddie corps triad seems equally homelike to be at or nighest the top of a leaderboard plangent of possibilities. Day's largest difficulty in shot his 64 was speed himself strike as McIlroy and Lexicographer walked and played speedily; Fowler - who is digit shots off the tread - seems solon solicitous selecting his playacting clothes than he does with the somebody of Woods sound him land.

All triad module person to sight with a dead dynamic Woods this weekend, and the odds are we'll undergo out honourable as more near Woods as we testament nearly them. Woods may individual tetrad ketalar jackets, but there are author questions close the nation of both his business and his educator than there are nigh Lexicologist's make sense.

If the old Someone is substantiate - and that's a big if - we'll see if the new beginning can ascending to the repugn better than the players before them. We'll see if McIlroy is a character, and whether Day and Lexicologist can conjoin him as division of the incoming big objective.

It testament all alteration out on a hot, sulphurous

weekend in one of golf's most sacred places.

No improved measure or square to decide the emerging of the gallinacean.