Rory McIlroy has a chance at this Open Championship. All of Northern Ireland is behind him

New York Times

6 days ago

PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — Rory McIlroy's walk up the 18th hole at Royal Portrush six years ago was the cruelest of sneak previews. A chance to see what it might look like, what it might feel like. The crowd surrounding the final green during the second round of the 2019 Open Championship welcomed the then 30-year-old with an applause that only your own can produce. At times that week, it seemed as if the waves of bodies covering Portrush wanted their native son to win just as much, or more, than he wanted a win. In the end, they greeted him like a champion.
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McIlroy finished that Friday with a lip-biting tip of the cap and a 6-under 65, what he would call one of the greatest rounds of his life. When the noise finally settled, though, the damage remained done. The wreckage of an opening 79 was too much to overcome and the Open would go on without him. All that was left was wondering what if he'd made that walk on Sunday, his hat in the air, history in hand.
'It's a moment I envisaged for the last few years,' McIlroy said that Friday of the scene on 18, 'it just happened two days early.'
Now the new version.
McIlroy was back here on Friday, back on the 18th fairway, back on the long walk among those who want everything for him. This time, he got what he wanted, and they got what they wanted. A chance.
Despite a wayward driver, McIlroy made it through the first and second rounds of this Open still intact, this time at 3-under for the tournament and seven shots off the lead heading into the weekend. He remains — despite Scottie Scheffler charging atop the leaderboard, and Matt Fitzpatrick threatening to become the first Englishman to claim the Claret Jug in 33 years, and 2023 Open champion Brian Harman jumping into the mix — the central character of this tournament.
All it'll take is two great rounds from a player who set the Royal Portrush scoring record with a 61 as a 16-year-old in 2005, and set it again after the course's 2015 renovation with his 65 in 2019.
'I didn't have this opportunity six years ago, so to play an extra two days in this atmosphere in front of these crowds, I'm very excited for that,' McIlroy said Friday. 'I feel like my game's definitely good enough to make a run.'
Perhaps McIlroy will follow his Masters win with a Hollywood — er, Holywood — weekend, turning 2025 into a career-defining season, cementing his case as the greatest European player of all time. Maybe he won't. All we know for sure is Friday's second round proved that it's possible and that this country is pulsing with hope.
McIlroy survived an uneven front nine Friday with birdies on No. 1 and No. 4 offsetting a pair of bogeys. On the par-five second, after blocking his driver in the general direction of Glenariffe, he opted to take an unplayable drop out of a mess of tall grass. McIlroy took the one-stroke penalty, blasted a second shot back into play, and salvaged a par.
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As it went in Thursday's opening-round 1-under 70, McIlroy was playing well enough Friday to avoid 2019's washout, but not enough to push forward. Then came the par-5 12th. Finally, a fairway and a green with no issue, followed by a near-miss eagle putt, and a tap-in birdie. Something resembling momentum. A whole pint of it for the crowd.
Two holes later, on the 14th, playing partners Tommy Fleetwood and Justin Thomas both hit 3-wood down a narrow fairway and were rewarded with trouble. Fleetwood in the left rough. Thomas in a right bunker. McIlroy? He took driver, sending a 375-yard lash 80 yards past his mates. The tee shot rolled 40 yards past the crosswalk and left McIlroy with a nippy 97-yard wedge shot into the 470-yard par-4. A birdie. More momentum.
McIlroy arrived at Portrush's closing stretch with the skies turning glower and winds growing stronger. He narrowly missed birdie on the devilish par-3 16th and followed with a par on 17. By the time McIlroy arrived on 18, the skies couldn't hold back any longer.
The driving rain might've sent some fans filing out of the grandstands surrounding the final green, but not with McIlroy coming. They waited, along with McIlroy, as Fleetwood embarked on a search and rescue mission to locate a tee shot gone awry, creating a long delay. McIlroy stood under an umbrella and you had to wonder.
Any flashbacks to those final feelings six years ago?
Did he feel the poetic symmetry so obvious to everyone else?
As far as emotions go, this week has mirrored that of the 2019 Open. Every gallery is stacked 20 rows deep. Constant shouts of 'GOOO ROR-RY!!' and 'COME-MON ROR-RY!!' Everywhere, always. Fans wave at McIlroy as if he's passing by in a motorcade, not a threesome. Kids hold up handmade signs for him, earning more camera time than many names on the leaderboard.
It can often feel like everyone is playing one tournament and McIlroy is playing another. They're playing one hole after another. McIlroy is in the midst of 72 Game 7s.
On the 12th tee Friday, McIlroy studied his ball and waggled his driver as Harris English, from the 11th fairway, struck an iron 4 feet from the pin — one of the best approach shots of the day — and only 20 or 30 yards away from 12 tee. McIlroy didn't need to back away from his shot because there was no reason to. No one cheered for English's shot. They were all staring at Rory.
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This has been the entirety of the weekend. So what might the weekend possibly be like?
Few, if any, can understand such a fatal tension. Fleetwood has at least tasted it. Raised in Southport, England, about 20 miles from Royal Liverpool, he played the 2023 Open on a course he grew up dreaming about, in front of a crowd of friends and neighbors, and felt every heartbeat.
'Every great moment is amplified,' Fleetwood said Friday, after a 3-under 68 to move to 1 under for the week. 'But it also comes with its own sort of things that you have to manage. How much everyone else wants it for you. That's not easy. Like, they're all there for you. They want it for you and they're supporting you.'
Take that, now add McIlroy maybe being Northern Ireland's greatest-ever sportsman, and him coming off completing the career Grand Slam only three months ago, and him wrestling the ghosts of 2019.
We can't know for sure what McIlroy was thinking from the long view down the 18th fairway Friday, but he was on his way to another walk to remember. A mosaic of umbrellas surrounded the 18th this time. The roars sounded the same, but were different.
This wasn't goodbye.