The quiet man’s formula has worked, so why change in this week of weeks? Rory McIlroy’s newly adopted policy of staying under the radar as much as possible – which started at the US Open and recurred at the Scottish Open – has continued for this 151st edition of the Open on terrain where he reigned supreme in 2014, his only Claret Jug success.
With no official press conference, the innermost workings of McIlroy’s thoughts have come through soundbites, a few radio interviews and required television takes. Perhaps, more pertinently, his actions have spoken louder than words. For, in practice, whether on the range or the chipping area, or the putting green, McIlroy’s diligence has been obvious, but so too his relaxed manner.
For instance, in executing bunker play from the cavernous and steep sand traps at the short-game area, McIlroy couldn’t prevent a smile and some chuckling as his caddie Harry Diamond deviously tossed the balls, one after the other, into the most challenging places. Up against the bank, by the side, so that the player would have to play the shot with one foot in the sand and the other leg contorted on the grass surround.
Each challenge was met, although the better methodology – not just for McIlroy, but for each of the 156 players in the field – would be to avoid the deeply banked bunkers which litter the fairways.
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Still, as McIlroy has proven in his career, momentum – which he carries in from his Scottish Open success – is an important weapon.
“I am very confident with where my game is. I have sort of proven that over the last few weeks, so the more I can focus on myself and try to shut out that outside noise, that’s the best thing for me to do,” said McIlroy, speaking to RTÉ's Greg Allen.
Without a Major title of any description since he lifted the Wanamaker Trophy as US PGA champion in 2014, McIlroy’s near-misses of recent years would suggest it is surely only a matter of time before he again revisits the champion’s presentation on the 18th green.
And, yet, if McIlroy is to do so, it will surely be the hard way. Apart from the challenge presented by the Hoylake links, which is greener and less fiery than the R&A would have liked it, but on the flipside featuring heavier rough, the field has so much strength in depth that each and all quests to claim the Claret Jug will require fortitude, creativity and strategy. Again, staying out of the bunkers – pot, strip and cross – will be a key component of anyone’s master plan.
“The rain has changed the golf course completely. I was expecting it to be more like 2006 when I was looking at it five, six weeks ago and I was excited about that. But every time I get excited about a nice brown golf course, Mother Nature comes in,” said the R&A’s chief executive, Martin Slumbers, of the links.
And Mother Nature could yet have a further input, with expected rainfall due over the weekend. The only question is how much rain? It would add to the challenge, for sure.
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The usual suspects are in the frame. McIlroy, for sure. Scottie Scheffler another, especially if the putter obeys. Jon Rahm, for certain. Others too. A resurgent Rickie Fowler, a focused Brooks Koepka, defending champion Cameron Smith, Tommy Fleetwood almost certainly.
The Irish challenge, again, is a strong one. Pádraig Harrington has designs of his own, at 51, to claim a third Claret Jug, but also identified McIlroy and Shane Lowry. “Rory can win any week... he will just have to play better than anyone else, which he is well capable of doing,” said Harrington. “And Shane obviously loves links golf and is very comfortable with his game at the moment. I think he’s obviously turned the corner on the greens. Yes, he has a win in him at any moment so it could again be this week.”
For Lowry, champion in 2019 at Royal Portrush, strategy is important too. “I think you’ll have to hit a lot of fairways and be in control of your ball. There is a lot of mid-irons out here, a lot of laying back to 165, 170 yards leaving six, seven or eight [iron] in. Your distance control needs to be spot on. I feel if I can drive the ball well and putt well I can do well around here,” said Lowry.
As for Harrington’s own thought process: “At our level when you get to this stage there would be very few here, nobody is not physically capable of playing golf good enough to win, but many of them aren’t mentally capable of being good enough to win. That’s why some people would declare that Majors are easier to win. From my experience it is about trusting and doing your own thing and being comfortable in your own skin, really, and that’s it,” said the Dubliner, a winner in 2007 and 2008 and playing some great golf of late.
In all, there are six Irish players in the field, with McIlroy, Lowry, Harrington, Séamus Power and Darren Clarke joined by Irish international amateur Alex Maguire.
McIlroy’s more selfish self-help policy has him like his old self, with confident struts and – as he showed in closing out Robert MacIntyre in Scotland – a ruthless streak.
As McIlroy put it: “I think the more I can focus on golf and my energy into the things I can focus on, that’s my goal. I have done enough of the talking over the last 12 or 18 months. I am not saying that other people should sort of fill my place, I think for me we are all golfers and we are here to do a job which is to try and play the best golf we possibly can.
“I did thrive a little bit in that environment last year but at this point I am just fatigued of it and I just want to get back to being a golfer and I made that decision recently, maybe over the past three or four months, and it has definitely helped me focus on things that are important and the things that make me happy.
“I can’t think about those 155 players, I just got to focus on myself and if I can focus on myself and play the golf that I know I am capable of, I know I will have a good chance to win.”
You’ve got to believe him.
