It’s roughly 150 yards from the putting green at the K Club to the first tee, and for the last 70 or so, the players traverse a narrow, barrier-lined walkway. And for every one of those 70 yards, the crowds were four deep, just to catch a glimpse of the home hero.
From up near the tee, you couldn’t see him, but you knew he was coming. Like the loudest game of Chinese whispers ever, the “c’mon Roryyyyyy” chants moved like wildfire, until eventually he emerged and bounded up the steps.
It was loud here two years ago, it was louder still at Royal County Down last year, but – and this could be recency bias, I’ll admit – the decibels seemed a notch higher this year. That’s the power of the Green Jacket, the anguish, despair and ecstasy we all shared on that immortal Sunday in April.
Only those in the grandstand, those leaning over the ropes, and those perched on their fathers’ shoulders could see, but it didn’t really matter. The feeling was in the air….. This was going to be special.
“He’s in the fairway,” one youth with eyesight to match loudly informed the rest of us, and a mini-cheer rippled through those within earshot of the kid. “What did he hit?” somebody asked, “sounded like a 3-wood,” somebody else replied.
By the time Alfredo Garcia-Heredia’s ball was in the air, the march had already begun, the crowd thinned by half….
And then Rory bogeyed the first.
I’d hung by the first tee to watch Adrien Saddier and Angel Hidalgo tee off, just to see the contrast in crowd – spoiler alert, it was stark – and to fill up on media centre caffeine before heading out to follow Rory, and a big roar went up from the direction of the first green. I looked at those near to me and they looked at me – Rory, birdie, surely. But no, it was a Rafa Cabrera Bello hole-in-one on the third.
The only noise emanating from Rory’s group were groans, and groans don’t travel as well.
I caught up just in time to watch the birdie putt drop on two, and by the time he’d managed an impressive par save on three, it was already the sort of rollercoaster round that has become McIlroy’s calling card.
Two superb blows to reach four in two, a bomb from downtown on five, close misses on six and seven, and then another birdie on nine and within nine holes, there was a new name at the top of the leaderboard.
But we’ve been here before. Different venue last year, but similar scenario. Rory in front, the crowd desperate to see him over the line, but the scars were fresh in the memory. Somehow, somewhere, he was either going to pull off something outrageous or have the rug cruelly pulled from under his feet.
It was almost both.
Enter Joakim Lagergren. K Club specialist across both courses, and the man to stand tallest down the stretch.
For 17 holes, we’d had it all. A clumsy chip and a bogey, raking long putts, supreme ball-striking, a putt that did a 360-degree lap of honour, a sublime up-and-down from the sand, and more than his fair share of near misses.
There was only one thing missing from the greatest hits collection, and as it happened, it was the only thing that would prevent this from being another tale of Irish Open heartbreak. An eagle, a Rory special.
And like the one-man rock band he’s become, he saved the biggest hit for last.
Almost a year to the day ago, he was in the exact same position at Royal County Down. He flirted, but it was a tease too far. The void created as the energy was sucked out of the crowd was something I’ll never forget at RCD. The nuclear blast of vibrancy that reverberated around the K Club when his eagle putt dropped this year is even more memorable.
“Rory! Rory! Rory!” – And it wasn’t just the kids chanting either.
Lagergren going in the water on the third playoff hole threatened to make it a slightly anti-climactic finish, but the atmosphere more than made up for it. A roof-raising encore.
We’ve been waiting nine years to crown another home winner at an Irish Open. And to the thousands chanting his name by the 18th green, it was worth waiting for.
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