Portrush Open victory last of old monkeys to shake from Rory McIlroy's back

Irish Examiner

16-07-2025

It wouldn't be true to say that the 153rd Open Championship will only start when Rory McIlroy steps up to the first tee on Thursday afternoon. It just feels like that.
Of the 156 players at this event, 135 will have already taken to the Dunluce links course here on the north Antrim coast before him, starting with Pádraig Harrington who accepted the honour of taking the first shot at the ungodly hour of 6.35am.
But McIlroy's first swing is the moment everyone is waiting for.
The reigning Masters champion and Grand Slam conqueror expressed his amazement earlier this week at the fact that six years have flown by since this prestigious competition returned to this course and to Northern Ireland for the first time in decades.
And he's right. It feels like yesterday.
To walk around this place here, past that first tee box and across the opening fairway is to shake your head with wonder all over again at just how exactly this magical golfer managed to find the out-of-bounds on the left and card an opening quadruple bogey.
He has admitted to being caught off guard by the swell of support and the frisson of excitement that swirled around him back in 2019. So you could argue that, with the Masters and Slam secured, this is maybe the last of the old monkeys to shake from his back.
'You know, he's going to play 72 holes,' Harrington reminded us on Wednesday.
You wouldn't bet on some having to play 76. It's ten years since the last four-hole playoff at this tournament, when Zach Johnson edged out Marc Leishman and Louis Oosthuizen at St Andrews. And four of the last five hostings have been won by one or two strokes.
There are five Irish players in the field here, and Shane Lowry will fancy his chances of a 2019 repeat and lifting that Claret Jug again, but McIlroy remains the North Star on this stretch of coastline in north Antrim.
It's six years since Shane Lowry's Open victory at Portrush. Picture: Ben Brady/Inpho
It's 18 years since Harrington won his first Open and McIlroy took home the silver medal as the leading amateur. The Dubliner predicted great things for the younger man that day — not a stretch — but even he couldn't foresee the extent of achievement that was to come.
'I really went out on a limb, didn't I?' he laughed on Wednesday in a chat with the Irish media. 'Look, we all knew about Rory for probably five, six years before that. He would have been on the radar.
'Obviously he's delivered on that, and that's hard. There's many a star in all sorts of sports that, for whatever reason, when they get going, it just doesn't happen. Rory delivered on that. To win a Grand Slam is incredible.
'Who would have thought that? And hopefully, maybe with Tom McKibbin and others coming behind, we do need to fill that void. That's the one thing we're missing in Ireland: we don't have that next bunch of guys on the tour.
'When I went out on tour there was 15 Irish guys. Only Conor Purcell's on the European Tour at the moment. So we do need a bunch of players to get out there and be the next generation. But for the moment let's hope that previous generations still have a few in them.'
There was the hint of a twinkle in his eye as he said that, but there are so many contenders for the title here and, if some of the leading men are obvious, then there isn't anyone absolutely head and shoulders above the rest in terms of odds or expectations.
Scottie Scheffler starts as favourite. Natch. Remarkably, the world number one was asked a question about slumps this week despite being the reigning US PGA champion, winning as recently as May and claiming three top tens in his three outings since.
Some slump and yet he clearly hasn't been playing to his absolute best. Find that here and there won't be many can live with him although the likes of an in-form McIlroy, Jon Rahm, reigning champion Xander Schauffele and Bryson DeChambeau will all have their backers.
Two-time Open champion Pádraig Harrington will be fiirst to tee off on Thirsday morning. Picture: Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile
Then again, this is a tournament that can chuck up winners from, if not left field then out of central casting. Think of Brian Harman, Francesco Molinari and Henrik Stenson in the last ten years alone. And JJ Spaun is here as US Open champion. Even he didn't see that coming.
For all the talk of links golf and its unique nature and unfamiliar demands, the famous jug has gone back to America 13 times since the millennium. There have been South African, Australian, Swedish and Italian champion golfers in that same time.
Unpredictable winds and bounces don't hold much regard for nationality, although the expected weather conditions this week, while mixed, could probably do with a stiffer breeze to make for the ideal test on a course that has been love-bombed all week.
Harrington summed it up as a perfect mix of risk versus reward, a track where players are asked a multiplicity of different questions on every shot and hole and one that, as a result, promises plenty of drama for player and spectator alike.
And to think, then, that we haven't even widened the lens on all this yet to take in the enormity of a second Open on Irish soil in just six years. This is enormous. Epic. Just maybe don't mention as much to McIlroy any time before ten-past three in the afternoon.
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Rory McIlroy more at peace with his mind and his game on return to Royal Portrush