Mark McGowan at Royal Portrush
After his nightmare opening round of the 2019 Open Championship at Royal Portrush, Rory McIlroy might well have settled for a one- or two-over round on the Championship’s return to the Causeway Coast, but he went a couple better and posted a round in red figures to join Share Lowry in a share of 20th place, three behind the leading quintet of Jakob Skov Olesen, Haotong Li, Matt Fitzpatrick, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, and Harris English
The world number two got a standing ovation on the opening tee – as did all five of the Irish competitors – and a hero’s welcome to every green and tee box he entered, and a hero’s sendoff on every exit, but it was on the tee box on ‘Hughie’s’ – hole number one – that his heartbeat was highest.
After twice hitting his ball out of bounds in practise rounds, and failing to find the fairway in four attempts, he’d have gladly settled for a place in the left-hand rough which is exactly where he found himself, before taking three putts from just short of the front of the green for an opening bogey.
A birdie on the par-5 second and another on the drivable par-4 fifth got him into red figures, but he continued to struggle off the tee, failing to find a fairway until the eighth. By that stage, he’d made it to -2 thanks to another deft approach to the par-5 seventh. A good birdie chance went to waste on eight, but he made amends on the 10th and moved to -3 and within a shot of the clubhouse lead.
But the toughest stretch of holes were yet to come, and after just missing the fairway left on 11, he had to take his medicine and try to make par the hard way but his 10-footer swung across the hole and wide. Fairway bunkers on 12 and 14 led to two more bogeys, and having worked so hard to ease his way to the first page of the leaderboard, he’d given those three shots back in a four-hole stretch.
After grinding out scrambling pars on 15 and 16, he continued to channel his inner Seve Ballesteros and recovered from another errant drive in magnificent fashion to birdie 17 and a routine two-putt par at the last got him in alongside defending champion Shane Lowry in a share of 20th at -1.
“Yeah, it was good, you know, I had it going three-under through 10, and let a few slip there around the middle of the round, but I steadied the ship well, you know, played the last four in one-under, and it was just, it was nice to shoot under par,” he said.
“I felt like once we turned for home, the wind picked up a little bit and it just became that little bit more difficult but yeah, it was a tough enough day, especially chopping out of the rough or out of the fairway bunkers most of the time, so to shoot under par was a good effort.”
And that is the main worry for Rory going into round two. He hit just two of 14 fairways, ranking 154th of 156 in driving accuracy and stands 131st in Strokes Gained: Off The Tee.
What is not a worry, however, is a lack of support.
“Yeah, [it was] absolutely incredible,” he said. “I feel the support of an entire country out there, which is a wonderful position to be in, but at the same time, you don’t want to let them down.
“So, you know, there’s that little bit of added pressure, but I felt like I dealt with it really well today. Certainly dealt with it better than I did six years ago, so I’m just happy to get off to a good start and get myself into the tournament. I’m sort of surprised – there’s a few guys in at four-under, but I’m surprised four-under’s leading. I thought someone might have gone out there and shot six- or seven-under today.”
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