No praise is high enough to match up to the towering performance that Martin Kaymer delivered at the 114th US Open last week at Pinehurst No2 course.

Numbers can be misleading at times, but not in the case of Martin and the US Open. A mere glance at the scores reveals the complete story of his domination.

On a golf course where most experts, including yours truly, believed that a couple of shots on either side of par would be good enough to win the tournament, Martin shot nine-under par to win by eight shots.

In a field of 156, comprising the top players in the world, he was one of three players who managed to break par, and the two other guys were actually tied for second at one-under par. I thought both Rickie Fowler and Erik Compton played exceptional golf, and that should give you an idea of how good Martin was.

He started with two successive 65s, which is a ridiculous thing to do in a major championship and especially an US Open where the course is set up so tough. He then closed with a one-under par 69 when he was perhaps the only player under pressure on the course because everyone else was resigned to playing for the second place.

However, I thought his most important round was the two-over par 72 on the third day, simply because conditions were not at all conducive for scoring. The pins were tucked in almost unreachable locations and the greens were just not holding after they lost all the moisture from the rain that lashed the course on Thursday night. There was a chance he could have lost his advantage, but he made sure he didn’t with a dogged display.

Just a few weeks ago, he had led wire-to-wire in winning the Players Championship, and that was a good enough proof that his game was back to its best. And after winning the US Open, he is now definitely the player to watch out for as we moves towards the second half of the season.

There were a few comments that I read about this being a very ‘boring’ US Open because Martin just killed the competition and made it a one-horse race. I thought it was very unfair because the same people would have gone gaga if this was Tiger Woods or Rory McIlroy performing in similar fashion. In all fairness, Martin was just exceptional at Pinehurst and we should be celebrating performances like this.

Moving on, the European Tour is in Fota Island Resort in Ireland this week for the Irish Open. Starting this week, and then moving on to the French and the Scottish Open, it is going to be a very important period for many players, including me, as it also forms the qualifying series for this year’s Open Championship.

— Jeev Milkha Singh is a four-time champion on the European Tour