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 seven off Scottie Scheffler’s lead.
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.
Harman won the 2023 Open and is contending again at Royal Portrush, but his introduction to links golf was rocky, at best.
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.
