11 111th Congressional US Open: The One you have the rights to brag on!

As the rains came and the clouds grew darker today, Rory McIlroy sought shelter. His glorious round — a 6-under-par 65 — was complete, and it was time to get dry.

The walk from the ninth green to the scoring room at Congressional Country Club is about 50 paces, and, in the moments as his group milled about before heading into the clubhouse, McIlroy was left out in the rain.

McIlroy’s caddie had his umbrella and his hat, so he had to continuously shake his moppy head of hair like a dog trying to dry off. When his playing partner, Dustin Johnson, walked over and offered his umbrella, McIlroy looked up and laughed.

“No, thanks,” he said with that trademark Irish grin. “I’ll be all right.”

Actually, the kid is better than all right — and maybe he’ll be downright impervious to everything thrown his way this week. After the first day of the 111th U.S. Open, McIlroy did what he did at St. Andrews last year in the British Open and at Augusta National two months ago at the Masters:

He posted the best number of the day and gave the field something to chase.

And once again, the 22-year old Northern Irishman will have to answer questions about playing with the lead at a major. He’ll be reminded about how he let a four-shot lead after 54 holes at the Masters dissolve into a final-round 80, or how he followed a record 63 on the first day of the British last summer with an 80.

As he craftily maneuvered his way around Congressional’s brawny 7,514 yards, there were the reminders of what has happened when he’s been in this position.

“I think you definitely have to analyze the parts that you want to do better,” McIlroy said. “But I really stopped thinking about it a week after. You really try to pick it apart and pick things out that you could have done better, but after you do that and you’re happy with everything that you’ve sort of taken from it, then you’ve just got to move on.”

That seems to have been the best medicine.

By grabbing the overnight lead after day one, McIlroy has now pulled off a rare quartet in golf: He has held a share or the outright lead at each of the past four major championships. But he, more than most in the field, knows that trophies aren’t won on Thursdays.

“Well, there’s definitely no relief in it,” McIlroy said. “It’s always nice to shoot a good first round at any tournament, let alone a major. But no relief. I know I’m playing well. I know this golf course. I know I’m pretty comfortable on this golf course, so I expected to go out there and — if I hit it the way I hit it in the practice rounds — I was going to always do pretty good.”

Now the focus is keeping it up.

His three-shot lead isn’t insurmountable, especially given that 23 players put up red numbers in the first round. The three immediate pursuers all have the one thing McIlroy has fumbled away: a major. There’s 2009 PGA Championship winner Y.E. Yang at 3-under, alongside the beneficiary of McIlroy’s Masters meltdown, Charl Schwartzel. And then, Louis Oosthuizen — who romped to the British Open title last year when McIlroy left the door open — leads a group of six players at 2-under.

“Definitely it’ll help,” Yang said about experience in winning a major. “I’m not sure if it boosts my confidence or helps me under pressure. But I know the feeling and I know that it’s a little more of everything in a major than it is in other tournaments.”

Said Schwartzel: “It’s a long way to go. But it’s nice to get yourself in contention. It makes your work almost less. If you start falling too far behind on a tough golf course, things can get a little bit too far in front of you. So you need to stay in there with a chance.”

Over the next 54 holes (or more), McIlroy has the same chance. With that in mind, he’s focused on the present — and not the past. That’s why in the commotion of the clubhouse lobby in front of the locker room afterward, a small gesture from his father, Gerry, meant so much.

Before McIlroy went back outside for a television interview, his father tapped him on the shoulder and stuck his hand out. The son gave the father a firm handshake and a nod that he had done well.

That after this day, everything — including what has still yet to come — would be all right.

“I don’t think I should be trying to do anything differently tomorrow than I did today,” McIlroy said. “I didn’t go out there thinking about shooting any sort of score. ... I’m sort of taking my mind off what’s going on here. Watch a move or just try and completely forget about what I’ve done today and start fresh tomorrow.”