Rory McIlroy joined Andy Johnson and Brendan Porath from ‘The Fried Egg’ on their ‘Eggsplorations’ podcast to discuss his love for Northern Ireland and Royal Portrush and Royal County Down in particular.
The duo recently returned from a 10-day trip to Irish shores in which they played a number of the country’s leading courses and thought few were better equipped than the world number two to shed some light on exactly why Ireland is the golfing mecca that it is.
McIlroy began by explaining how differently golf and golfing culture is in Ireland compared to the United States where he now calls home.
“I think that coming from my part of the world, the golf culture is a lot more inclusive,” he said. “I joined Holywood Golf Club as a junior member at seven years old, and I think my mum and dad paid £100 a year for me to be a member. In the summers they ran junior competitions every Tuesday and Friday, there wasn’t an issue with getting access to the course – yes, there were certain times juniors couldn’t play, but we had ample access.”
He’d go on to suggest that there are still certain restrictions in the United States around accessibility, but that those barriers didn’t exist where he grew up.
“My oldest friends are the friends I grew up with at Holywood Golf Club and some of my fondest memories are playing golf until 10:30 at night in the summers with those guys because we could. No one was yelling at us to get off the course, I thought it was a lot more accessible and inclusive.”
“I didn’t realise it at the time,” he added,” but getting to this point in my life, I look back upon those days and on those summers and I really appreciate it because it helped me cultivate whatever talent I had in the game and no one there in any way tried to hold me back or tell me that I wasn’t old enough or I wasn’t good enough. I had a wonderful support system from that golf club that helped me improve and get to the level I got to.”
Despite his fondness for the area he grew up in, he revealed that he hasn’t been back in quite some time but is looking forward to rectifying that when he gets the opportunity to compete at the Amgen Irish Open at Royal County Down later this year.
And unsurprisingly, it, along with Royal Portrush, are the two Northern Irish courses that he feels stand above all others.
“I remember my dad taking me to play Royal Portrush for my 10th birthday,” he recalled, “and it was the first time that I ever met Darren Clarke – I met him on the chipping green.
“It was big! I’d never been, never played the course before and you’re driving on this little road and you get to the crest of the hill and you’re overlooking the entire golf course before you take the left to go down into Portrush. I remember looking at it, going – especially as a 10-year-old – this place looks huge and the dunes are so high. It was a golf course, but it was bigger. Holywood’s this tiny piece of land on the side of a hill, but you go to somewhere like Portrush and it’s a completely different style and a completely different esteem of golf that I hadn’t experienced before.”
He was a few years older when he finally got to test his wits against Royal County Down, although he’d been as a spectator to watch his father Gerry compete in the Barton Shield.
“I was probably 13 or 14,” he said, “and it was the hardest golf course I’d ever played. I remember thinking ‘how could anyone break par around here?’ It is so difficult and fortunately, that’s where my Walker Cup was. That was always my goal as an amateur, make that Walker Cup team at Royal County Down and then turn pro after that. I had opportunities to turn pro before that, but I so wanted to play the Walker Cup at home at Royal County Down and fortunately I was able to do that.”
What makes Royal County Down so difficult, McIlroy believes, are the number of questions the course asks.
“It’s probably the first golf course I played that I almost needed to think one shot ahead of myself,” he admitted. “I think playing Royal County Down a lot helped me learn a lot about how to be more methodical in my course management and how to be more disciplined as a golfer.”
His favourite hole at Royal Portrush is the 15th – the old 13th for those who played it prior to course changes ahead of the Open Championship’s return, but unusually, at Royal County Down he opts for one of the shorter holes, especially when you get the wind into your face
“That little par-3,” he said, “I’ve hit 3-iron into that seventh hole before and thought: ‘where is this going to go?’ I’ve played that hole and hit it onto the 13th tee box, I’ve hit it down the eighth fairway. It’s such a cool little par-3. I think seven is a very underrated hole and it’s probably my favourite hole on the course because of it. I love short, difficult par-3s.”
McIlroy has long been a supporter of equipment rollbacks and he says that, though still extremely difficult, the challenge these courses present now is different from what it was even as a Walker Cup player back in 2007.
“Links courses, more than ever, need the elements to defend them,” he said. “I think that’s a given. They’re both big golf courses. They’ve both fortunately had room to go back – even Portrush built two new holes for the Open, but not all links courses in Ireland and the UK can do that, but these two fortunately could. I think you can take a lot more bunkers out of play than previously, and at RCD, you don’t hit driver off two, you don’t hit driver off three, you don’t hit driver off six, there’s a lot of hole that modern technology have taken a lot of the skill out.”
As for which course he prefers? Well, it’s a matter for debate, with one course being more enjoyable and one being more challenging. If he had 10 rounds to divvy up across the two courses, how would he divide them?
“If I want a challenge, I go to RCD. If I want to enjoy myself, I go to Portrush,” he laughs. “I would say six RCD, four Portrush. I’m not a fence sitter.”
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