Royal Liverpool: It began with a bogey-less round at Carnoustie and everyone nodded. There was no doubt whatsoever that this mop-haired 18-year-old from Holywood would one day win the Open. Everyone was right. Except it never does happen as we imagine.
Rory McIlroy’s progression from that brilliant amateur of the links to this master of the links had more bumps and hollows than even the most spectacular seaside layout. Yet every great layout finishes where it started and, in 2007, Padraig Harrington provided the perfect intro.
The Dubliner was on the 18th green with the microphone in one hand and the Claret Jug in the other. Laughing, he looked over at young McIIroy, who had been presented with the Silver Medal for leading amateur, and said: “I’m just I glad I have won this before Rory gets going.”
Yes, that Open opening in Angus had been special. McIlroy’s 68 was the only scorecard in that first round that did not contain a bogey. Yet it was not the bare statistics that caused the galleries to take this freckle-faced teenager to their heart. It was that bounce in his step, those curls, the speed, élan and creativity with which he played and the awesome power he produced through the slight 5ft 9in frame.
The most memorable moment was the 230-yard two-iron through the wind that rolled up to the flag on the 18th green. It was an audacious shot by anyone’s standards, but by an 18-year-old?
The general sporting media only had to scratch the surface to discover what their golfing colleagues already knew. Here was the real McIlroy. Here was a lad who had fired a 61 around the revered and feared links of Royal Portrush — at the age of 16. Here was the son of a club steward who all the principle management companies had been trying to woo for years, who had been singled out as a phenomenon as an eight-year-old when Irish TV featured him chipping balls into a washing machine.
Darren Clarke told anyone who would listen that McIlroy was the future of European golf and would be making his mark on the professional ranks very soon.
When McIlroy turned pro after Carnoustie, it took two tournaments for him to earn his European Tour card and, after a year of consolidation in his new profession, he was ready to return to the Open. By the time of Turnberry in 2009, McIlroy was an established member of the world’s top 50, having won his maiden title in Dubai and then, on his first professional appearance in America, reached the quarter-finals of the WGC Match Play.
A tie for 20th at the Masters, a tie for 10th at the US Open, McIlroy arrived in Ayrshire much-hyped, priced as third favourite by the bookmakers. He finished tied for 47th and called his challenge “a bit bad and a bit ugly”.
St Andrews is the course where McIlroy says he feels most comfortable. And his opening 63 in the 2010 Open was the epitome of luxurious. It was the lowest first round in the history of the Open and for McIlroy, who in his eight competitive rounds around the Old Course had not fared worse than a 69, the task presented no fears whatsoever.
As he walked away that Thursday with his name everywhere, he declared: “There’s absolutely no reason why I can’t win.” Eighty shots later, there was not only a reason why he could not win that year, but also for the years ahead. The wind ruined him and all the whispers of McIlroy’s inability to cope in rough conditions came to the fore.
He was to recover at the weekend to finish in a tie for third, but his Open narrative had been set and he was only to proffer it substance in the next three years.
In 2011, McIlroy swaggered into Sandwich having won the previous major by eight shots. That breakthrough at the US Open in Congressional came two months after his implosion in the final round of the Masters, when firing an 80 having led by four. Nothing and nobody would stop him now.
Except for the cold and windy weather on the south coast, a fact he acknowledged with comments that were to haunt him until yesterday. Following his tie for 25th, McIlroy said: “I’m not a fan of tournaments where the outcome is predicted so much by the weather. I’m looking forward to getting back to playing in America, where it’s 80 degrees and sunny and not much wind. There’s no point changing my swing for one week a year. I’ll just have to wait for a year when the weather is better.”
Was he really from Northern Ireland? Had the American high life made him soft? Was his statement sacrilegious? All of these questions were posed and more. And because he finished in a tie for 25th and missed the cut at Lytham in 2012 and Muirfield in 2013 respectively, and because of his reactions, the tone of the queries became more baffled if not sinister.
Here he was a multiple major champion, who had been No. 1 in the world and at Lytham he was saying, “when you’re struggling, this is not really the nicest place to be”.
The Open had been meant to be his birthright, but instead it had become his bete noir. It was all deeply confusing. Had he talked himself into this destructive negative mindset? Was he simply living up to his own doubts beside the seaside?
McIlroy denied this two weeks ago. “I haven’t talked myself into it, because I know I can play on links courses and have the proof in my record. I’ve played well in the Dunhill Links when it’s been nasty, won loads on links events when it was iffy and shot a 61 at Portrush — which isn’t shabby, is it?
“So of course I can play links golf and when it’s windy. It’s daft to say I can’t or to think I can’t. For me it’s a case of getting a hang of it again and I think this week at the Scottish Open of competitive play is going to be really good for me.”
And so it was. McIlroy opened with a 64 and, after his Friday curse struck with a second-round 78, he recorded a 68-67 weekend and headed south from Aberdeen almost willing on the tough conditions.
“I’ve been practising all these links shots and want to test them,” he told me. “You know the Open is big to me. It was when I was a kid, when I was an amateur, and it is now. I don’t want to be remembered as someone who it supposedly didn’t suit — because it does.”
McIlroy had the evidence in his grasp on Sunday night, hoisted high above his head. An Open and, thankfully, shut debate.
