Why will McIlroy rule? It's all in the hips

Apart from checking to see if Rory McIlroy has any sleep in his eyes, Tiger Woods would be well advised to analyse carefully his young rival when they partner each other at The Barclays Championship at Bethpage on Thursday. The art of golf says "know your enemy".

Certainly, McIlroy must be considered the biggest threat to Tiger Woods achieving his lifetime aim of overhauling Jack Nicklaus's record mark of 18 majors.

Having won the US PGA Championship aged 23 years and three months last Sunday, McIlroy was four months younger than Woods when the American won his second major. That is one concern; but the nonchalant style in which McIlroy prevailed must be a far weightier worry.

Every onlooker could tell McIlroy was relaxed in that record eight-shot triumph, but did not realise exactly how relaxed. McIlroy has revealed that after finishing off his third round early on Sunday morning, he returned to his rented home for a snooze.

"Everyone was talking about how I showed back up at the course with only half an hour to go before my afternoon tee-time," said McIlroy. "I actually took a nap and my dad had to wake me because I'd overslept. Dad said to me, 'Rory, you realise you have to play some golf this afternoon?'?" McIlroy duly played some golf and on a tough Kiawah Island course all his potential appeared to be fulfilled.

One interested observer was Europe's most successful major-winner, Sir Nick Faldo, who immediately predicted that McIlroy would become the first golfer from his continent to win the career Grand Slam.

Faldo looked at five aspects which he believes will help McIlroy in being successful on a mission in which the likes of the Englishman and Severiano Ballesteros fell short.

Swing

"The rhythm has always been there, as has his wonderful elasticity. I played a practice round with him at Carnoustie in 2007. It was chucking it down and I thought, 'Wow, that's the best swing I've ever seen in a set of waterproofs'. He was long and fluid. I was a chicken, giving up after half-a-dozen holes, but on he went.

"At that stage, there were fears about him physically. But he's always had something in his hip action. The computers say he can move his hips at 770 degrees per second, which allegedly is twice as fast as anybody else.

"He has twice as much range of motion and his hip rotation is twice as fast and that's why he just belts it for what I'll say in jest is a pint-size. That's why he can hurtle it out there as far as anybody."

Short game

"You've got to be a Houdini with the wedge and a putter - that's No?1, it doesn't matter who you are. And in majors that's when a lot of the nerves come in. We've had a year when guys have crumbled and obviously it happened at The Open with Adam Scott.

"But Rory's scrambling was fabulous at Kiawah. He made a great scramble at the 13th and 14th and the ninth was really good because he short-sided himself and had to chip downwind. So he got that one to really bite. And he's putting so much better. He works hard with Dave Stockton and goodness he's putting with confidence. You can't overstate the importance of this."

Mind

"To win two majors by eight shots shows you that when he makes it happen boy does it happen.

I played the strategy game but he's a power player who knows how to play strategy as well. Rory's got it all. But what I believe is his golfing DNA gift is his visualisation. I had to teach visualisation to myself but he's got it naturally.

"You just watch the way he looks at things, watch the way he lines up bunker shots. He's trying to hole them. He can see the perfect shot in his mind - and then can so often produce it."

Intensity

"He knows how to stay on the right intensity for the whole period of time, which is special. It's different, because most guys go up and down with their focus.

"Anything could have happened, even with a six- or seven-shot lead. But he kept going, kept driving himself, saying, 'Why win it by seven when you can win by eight?' That was Tiger's mindset and that's intensity, right there. It's about taking everything you've got to the majors. He now knows the most important thing in his life are the majors and will do everything to gear his schedule and the rest of his career towards them. He knows darn well they are the priority in his life."

Self-belief

"Of course, the next major is the Masters and people will bang on about the baggage he carries there. But he's already proven

he's able to have an experience like the one he suffered in 2011, take the positives and move on.

"I think that scar is well and truly rubbed out. I bet he can't wait to get back to Augusta. That would give him three out of the four with only the Open to go. Who would dare bet against him then?

"His confidence is going to be huge because he knows, and more importantly he knows that the rest of the field know, that if he's on top of his game they might be playing for second."