PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — The moment that surprised Rory McIlroy the most when he played the 2019 Britidh Open at Royal Portrush—the first Open held in his home country of Northern Ireland since 1951—was the ovation on the first tee.
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“I think I remember … not being prepared for it or not being ready for how I was going to feel or what I was going to feel,” McIlroy said on Monday at Portrush as Open Championship week began.
He was overwhelmed, and the nightmare began—an opening tee shot out-of-bounds, a quadruple, triple and double bogey in the same round, and a 79 that seemed to ensure he’d miss the cut and let those people down.
On Friday, McIlroy almost defied reality with a 65 that brought him within a shot of the cut, and the image that remains with him today is a dark sky and hitting a perfect 6-iron approach on the 14th hole. The crowd roared, and at the green they gave him a standing ovation.
It was a beautiful moment, but McIlroy left that tournament with regrets. He had tried to isolate himself from the pressure of being the home country guy, from the weight of his country’s expectations, but in the end, he felt it backfired.
Rory McIlroy signs autographs after his practice round.
Ramsey Cardy
“I think it’s better for everyone if I embrace it,” McIlroy said of his plan for this week. “I think it’s better for me because … it’s nice to be able to accept adulation, even though I struggle with it at times. But it’s also nice for the person that is seeing you for the first time in a few years. It just makes for a better interaction and not trying to hide away from it. I think it’s more of an embrace everything that’s going to come my way this week and not try to shy away from it or hide away from it.”
That marks a big change from 2019, and you can see the same theme in how he seems to be emerging from the strange funk he appeared to slide into after his Masters win in April that secured his career Grand Slam. One journalist brought up the day he was the scorer for McIlroy’s group in 2006 in Dubai, and how the teenaged golfer told him that his two goals were to become the World No. 1 golfer and win the career slam—both of which he’s achieved. Then came the question: How do you reset your goals?
“I think everyone could see over the last couple of months how I struggled with that,” he said. “I’ve done something that I’ve told everyone that I wanted to do, but then it’s like I still feel like I have a lot more to give. Talk about the pressure being off, yes, but anyone that sits up here at this table, we’re all competitors. We all want to do better. We all think we can just get a little bit extra out of what we have.”
“But it hasn’t taken me that long,” he continued. “Jesus, being 10 weeks or whatever it is, it hasn’t been that long. … I’ve alluded to this, but I probably just didn’t give myself enough time to let it all sink in. But that’s the nature of professional golf. They do a very good job of keeping you on the hamster wheel, and you feel like it’s hard to get off at times.”
It was only recently that McIlroy felt he had his energy and excitement back, and he put it to good use last week in the Scottish Open, finishing in a tie for second. Last week and this week represented at “14-day chunk” for McIlroy that will be the highlight of his summer. After that, it’s another reset, with the goal of peaking again for the Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black as Europe tries to win on U.S. soil.
Despite growing up 60 miles south of Portrush, in Holywood, and setting the course record here as a 16-year-old, McIlroy only has played only two competitive rounds on the Dunluce Links that were altered before the 2019 Open. It’s not as familiar to him as it could be, and on Monday, ahead of the crowd, McIlroy managed to get 18 holes in without the usual practice round delays, only hours after completing the final round of the Scottish Open. That will probably be as peaceful as it gets for him in the days to come—the fans will be roaring, the stakes will rise, and he’ll have to rely on a new perspective if he can recapture the form that saw him complete the career slam.
Is it the British Open or the Open Championship? The name of the final men’s major of the golf season is a subject of continued discussion. The event’s official name, as explained in this op-ed by former R&A chairman Ian Pattinson, is the Open Championship. But since many United States golf fans continue to refer to it as the British Open, and search news around the event accordingly, Golf Digest continues to utilize both names in its coverage.
