GIVE RORY TIME

He’ll rack up more majors - Harrington

PÁDRAIG Harrington believes Rory McIlroy is firmly ‘on pace to get into double digits with majors’ but says the high-calibre play of his opponents has made such a challenge ‘a tougher ask’ than before.

McIlroy, 29, has been stuck on four majors — one less than Seve Ballesteros — since the summer of 2014 when he completed The Open-US PGA double, having made his breakthrough in the US Open in 2011.

But Harrington, himself a three-time major winner, doesn’t see the seven-year hitch as an issue in the context of how the greats accumulated their majors.

‘It took Jack [Nicklaus] 24 years to get to 18 [majors], Tiger [Woods] basically took 14 years to get to 14. That’s one a year. It doesn’t happen as often as people think,’ said Harrington.

‘And for the eights and nines majors with [Tom] Watson and [Gary] Player, you’ll find it took 20 years, certainly 15, and you’re judging Rory over seven years.

‘Give him another seven years and see if he’s got eight in the bag. Are we [going to be] disappointed with that then?’

One of the reasons McIlroy is 18/1 to win the 147th Open is the quality of his rivals, headed by holder Jordan Spieth, world number one Dustin Johnson as well as US PGA

champion Justin Thomas. Seven years ago, Spieth and Thomas were old enough to order nothing stronger than Irn-Bru. ‘Back in 2011, he [McIlroy] stole a march on the field when it came to driving the ball, which brought tremendous confidence all the way through his game,’ said Harrington. ‘Really, he was competing against himself, similar to how Tiger would have been for most of his career. I think there’s many guys he’s competing against now. ‘Clearly his career is now solely based on how he does in the majors. There seems to be no other yardstick for Rory, and that’s probably the yardstick he uses for himself. ‘Rory is well on pace to get into double digits with majors but it’s got harder as there’s more players out there who are capable of