Latest news with #Hughie's'
NBC Sports
5 days ago
- Sport
- NBC Sports
With two more rounds at Royal Portrush, can Rory McIlroy revive his greatest weapon?
Rory McIlroy brilliantly plays the fourth hole with a great tee shot, a strong approach shot and then a perfect putt from five feet out during Round 2 of the Open Championship at Royal Portrush. PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland – Six years ago, Rory McIlroy wrecked to a quadruple bogey-8 on his first hole, rallied on Day 2 in a futile attempt to make the cut, and offered an emotionally-charged recap of a week that, admittedly, overwhelmed him. By comparison, Friday's fare was downright mundane. Following an opening 1-under 70 that didn't include an 8 on the first hole – he was three shots better with a bogey on the hole named 'Hughie's' – McIlroy began Day 2 under sunny skies with a birdie at the first hole. More than five hours later, when he completed his round in an intense deluge, he was only a shot better for a 2-under 69, leaving him five shots off the early lead held by Brian Harman. It was an eventful day, based almost entirely on another poor performance off the tee, but given his history at Royal Portrush Opens, it felt like progress. 'It was a good day. I feel like I maybe could be a couple closer to the lead, but overall in a decent position heading into the weekend,' he said. He didn't have that chance in 2019 when The Open returned to this slice of Northern Ireland for the first time in 68 years. Despite a second-round 65, McIlroy missed the cut six years ago and since that emotional exit he has done the math. At best, Royal Portrush is a once-every-6-to-8-years stop on the Open Championship rotation, which means the next time the most famous golfer from Holywood, Northern Ireland, will get a chance to win a 'home game' major he will be in his early-to-mid-40s. As well as McIlroy has aged, that is not exactly a winning proposition, and he knows it. 'The experience I had there last time – the Friday was amazing, the Thursday, not too much,' McIlroy said last week at the Genesis Scottish Open. 'It's a little like [Novak] Djokovic won the Olympics last year, he knew that was going to be his final chance, and you saw the emotion and you saw how much it meant to him. You think about it, and you can't pretend that it's not there.' In 2019, when the game's oldest major championship returned to Royal Portrush, McIlroy tried to pretend, he tried to convince himself that the perfect ending wasn't that important. But this time, he's pivoted and embraced all the subtext with more favorable results. McIlroy easily made the cut Friday at Royal Portrush despite a game that seemed a fraction off, and will begin the weekend with at least a chance to complete what many would consider the most emotionally consequential season in golf, following his breakthrough in April at the Masters. 'I'm excited for that opportunity. 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. I feel like my game's definitely good enough to make a run,' he said. The support McIlroy has received has been beyond inspiring and will continue through the weekend, but it will be up to the world No. 2 to give the home crowd something to cheer about, and that starts on the tee. Through two rounds, it has been a familiar story with McIlroy finding just nine of 28 fairways through two rounds, that ranks 148th out of 156 players. It was a similar story last week at the Scottish Open, where he finished runner-up to Chris Gotterup despite four days of substandard play off the tee. It's been like this ever since the PGA Championship, where his driver was deemed non-conforming before the start of the championship. Drivers on the PGA Tour are regularly found to be non-conforming and players eventually adjust, but for McIlroy, the statistics suggests he's still searching. Before the PGA Championship, he was ninth on Tour in strokes gained: off the tee, but he has slipped to 69th since the year's second major, picking up just .058 shots on the field, the lowest total of his career. Hitting fairways at The Open is always paramount, and Thursday's conditions made driving even more of a challenge. But it has always been McIlroy's driver that separates him from the field and without it, the mountain becomes exponentially steeper. 'I hit it in play a little bit more off the tee, which was nice to have some looks out of the fairway and into some of these greens,' he said of his second round, which did include a flawless 2-under 33 on his second nine. In many ways, the hard part is over for McIlroy. He survived the emotions of the first hole and the 36-hole cut. He now has the weekend to figure the rest out.
Irish Examiner
6 days ago
- Sport
- Irish Examiner
Some discomfort but no squirming this time as McIlroy survives first day at Portrush
Paul McGinley is voicing a diddly-eye ad for Irish tourism this week. Padraig Harrington, a man who seems to know his ice cream, has been bragging that the 99s at this 'Irish' Open are better than anywhere else on the Championship rota. There's times when all this stuff, all this back-patting, can feel a bit corny. A bit much. Then you stand beside the first tee at Royal Portrush's Dunluce links just after three o'clock on Thursday and you're blown away by the scene stretching out before you. Ireland really does do golf well. On both sides of the ropes. To see that sea of people, four and five deep, all the way down the 420-yard hole known as 'Hughie's' was to imagine what the Circus Maximus must have looked like when Rome was at its peak and charioteers were risking lives and limbs. Rory McIlroy wasn't in any physical danger when he stood over his first shot at the 153rd Open, but this didn't lack any for drama given the torture that unfolded here in 2019 when he hooked his first ball left and out of bounds and signed for a quadruple bogey. Do we have to bother adding that he went and missed the cut? His entire first round six years ago was an exercise in squirming discomfort: for him and for the rest of us. There was discomfort this time but no squirming. Armed with that breakthrough Masters title and career Grand Slam since April, McIlroy rode this one out. Though his drive found rough down the left, it stayed in bounds. And if a missed tiddler that landed him with an opening bogey wasn't great then it was no disaster. The worst of it was over. He could look the rest of the course in the eye again, on equal terms. 'Absolutely incredible,' he said. 'Look, 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 there's that little bit of added pressure. 'I felt like I dealt with it really well today. Certainly dealt with it better than I did six years ago,' he added with a knowing laugh. 'I was just happy to get off to a good start and get myself into the tournament. 'I was sort of surprised: there's a few guys at four-under, but I'm surprised four-under is leading. I thought someone might have gone out there and shot six or seven today. Only three back with 54 holes to go, I'm really happy with where I am.' By the 10th he had found four birdies, avoided any more bogeys and sat just one shot off the lead on three-under. Much more like it from the man who was still very much a boy when he took just 61 strokes to set a course record here back in 2006. It wasn't nearly as smooth as that sounds. His driving was all over the place and, while his chipping and putting was standing up to the test, an aversion to fairways that left him ranked third-last in the field off the tee was always likely to demand payment. He had to dig deep into his pocket eventually. Three bogeys in four holes, from 11 to 14, dragged him back to level par, and into doubt. He needed a huge putt from 12 feet on 15 and an up-and-down on Calamity's par-three 16th to avoid slipping in to over-par status as the day pushed into a 15th hour of play. That save on the 15th felt pivotal at the time. Like one of those sliding door moments that are highlighted and discussed with great solemnity on those retrospective interviews and documentaries when people turn a corner and sink to their knees on a Sunday. 'Yeah, it was important. It was a big putt, especially having bogeyed three of the last four at that point. That was important. It was a huge putt to keep whatever momentum I had. Then after that, playing those last three holes at one-under was great.' It was a brilliant approach from deep rough at the 17th that set up the 12-footer for birdie, and he flirted with another on the 18th hole to leave him with a one-under par 70 despite all that trouble off the tee. It could have been better, it could have been worse. Never a dull moment with McIlroy. 'I had it going [at] three-under through 10 and let a few slip there around the middle of the round. I steadied the ship well, played the last four at one-under, and it was nice to shoot under par. 'I felt like once we turned for home, played 10 and turned back [away from the clubhouse] and played 11, the wind picked up a little bit and it just became that little bit more difficult. 'Yeah, it was a tough enough day, especially either chopping out of the rough or out of the fairway bunkers most of the time. So to shoot under-par was a good effort.' Not too shabby at all, given all that and the ghosts of 2019.
