McDowell doesn't think McIlroy will dominate (©GettyImages). Graeme McDowell doubts Rory McIlroy's ability to dominate the golfing world despite his Open Championship success at Royal Liverpool.
McIlroy's triumph represents his third career major with only Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods achieving this feat by the age of 25.
He has now earned three quarters of a career grand slam and only needs the US Masters to complete his major jigsaw.
The Northern Irishman earned a two-shot victory over Sergio Garcia and Rickie Fowler but McDowell doesn't think this win will kick start an era of dominance for McIlroy.
Depth of competition
McDowell has won one major himself triumphing at the US Open in 2010 at Pebble Beach. But fellow Northern Irishman believes that the talented new generation in the game will make it difficult for McIlroy to match Woods' dominance when he won seven of his 14 major titles between August 1999 and June 2002.
"I don't think we'll ever see the dominance of Tiger Woods in the late '90s, early 2000s. I don't think we're ever going to see that again," McDowell told Sky Sports.
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"For every Rory there's an Adam Scott and Jordan Spieth and Sergio Garcia and a Tiger and a Phil (Mickelson). There's too many good players now. It's so deep. It's so strong. Everyone is so good.
"I don't think we're going to see that dominance again for a while unless somebody comes out who has perfected the imperfectable. I think these guys, the best players in the world, are playing pretty close to as good as you can play, really. This game is hard."
McIlroy praise
However, McDowell had praise for the way McIlroy is playing recently but feels that he can't improve further. McIlroy has recently won the BMW PGA at Wentworth before landing his third major on Sunday.
It appears he is playing his best golf during his career but McDowell believes that McIlroy won;t get any better.
"You can't play much better than Rory is hitting the ball. That's as good as it gets. Unfortunately you can't hole every putt, or else you'd be shooting 58 every day. It's just not happening."
Mickelson agrees
Phil Mickelson agreed with McDowell's assessment of McIlroy believing that no-one can dominate the golfing world like players have done in the past.
Like McIlroy, Mickelson has won three of the four majors and only needs the US Open to complete his career grand slam.
He said: "We used to say there will never be another Nicklaus, and then along came Tiger. You never want to discount the possibility of someone coming along and dominating.
"But nobody has really asserted themselves week in and week out the way Tiger did for such a long period of time.
“We'll have great performances, like Rory this week. Like Martin Kaymer at the US Open and so forth. But it's very hard to do that week in and week out the way Tiger did. That's why it was so impressive what he did."
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