McKibbin out to make a name for himself after generation-spanning practice round at Portrush

The 42

a day ago

DAWN BROKE TODAY at Royal Portrush across their generational golfer, but this time Rory McIlroy had company for his crack-of-dawn practice round. Alongside him was the great Northern Ireland golfer of the previous generation, Darren Clarke, and also the stand-out name among the next generation: Tom McKibbin.
Where McIlroy's precocity and reputation preceded him right across the island before ever he excelled on the global stage, McKibbin has arrived as a less-known quantity. Having earned PGA Tour status at the end of his second year on the DP World Tour last year, for instance, McKibbbin has elected to swap his card for the lucrative obscurity of the LIV Tour.
To accentuate that sense of separation, McKibbin wasn't at Portrush for the 2019 Open: he was playing an amateur event in the United States, and thus watching on television.
'Once they announced it was going to come back', says McKibbin of the Open's rapid return to Portrush, 'it was a big, big goal of mine to get back here and get playing in it.'
He ticked that box by finishing among the top-25 on the DP World Tour last year. Of more relevance on the topic of familiarity is McKibbin's with the course.
'I've been a member here for the last 10 years', he says. 'I used to come up here a lot in the winter time as a kid, when the courses up near home were closed. So I've played it a lot, but up until this week, I'd maybe only played four or five times off the championship tees.
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'And normally you just come up and play off the members tees and things like that. But I played the British Boys here in 2018, which was my only competitive experience around here. And that's sort of all I can I can go off.'
He can also rely on a very solid start to life at the majors. This will be McKibbin's fourth appearance at golf's biggest quartet of championships, and he has made the cut at each of the previous three. He also has the ear of Clarke, who reached out to him for a practice round a few weeks ahead of the tournament.
'I work with a coach that coaches him as well', says McKibbin. 'And we had always been planning to get a little bit of a training camp for a couple of days together. And he was at home, I was at home, so it made sense to go come up for a couple days and get out in the course while it was nice and quiet.'
Form gives him another reason to feel positive. He finished in a tie for fourth at LIV Valderrama last week, helping his team win the collective prize while injecting another $750,000 into his bank account.
His captain, Jon Rahm, carved out a piece of his own pre-tournament press conference to sing a hosanna to McKibbin.
'He's a fantastic young man', said Rahm. For a 22-year-old to be as calm and collected as he is is quite phenomenal. He's quiet by nature, but even in competition when things go wrong, he stays quite calm, and it's just remarkable and an incredible gift to have for a young player. I don't think I can relate to that whatsoever, so I'm a little bit jealous of that. I think it's going to serve him very well in the long run.'
Where McIlroy is visceral and emotional, and Clarke is garrulous and expressive, McKibbin strikes you as almost comically unruffled. He is also swerving expectation: asked whether he could win the Open, he replied, 'I don't know.'
'With links golf and the weather and conditions links golf can bring, it's very hard to set expectations or whatever', he continues. 'You sort of have to just go with the flow, really what you're given, and go out there and try and handle that the best you can, and given the conditions and sort of battle for it. I just want to have my best result in the major, and sort of go from there.'