READY TO REIGN, RORY?
THE OPEN STARTS TODAY
Anyone born and bred in northern Ireland can’t be too optimistic, wrote the poet Seamus Heaney.
yet to be on the coastline of County Antrim this week, to make the drive up from Belfast even, is to see a country beaming its most toothsome smile.
The weather may have been doing its damnedest to wreck the mood yesterday, but not even grey skies, wicked crosswinds and torrential rain could dampen this parade.
What will it be for Rory McIlroy, blessing or curse?
Thinking positively, he could feed off all this wonderful energy, bounce inspired around Royal Portrush, buoyed by the love of the common people.
‘I can’t just put the blinkers on and pretend it’s not all going on,’ he said. ‘I still have to look around and smell the roses. That’s one of my mantras this week.’
Against that, those who share Heaney’s world view would warn of the pitfalls; of the 148th open Championship becoming a celebration of Irish golf and of McIlroy himself, one grand four-day craic, amid which the very serious business of winning a major tournament is lost. Is there not a danger that might happen?
‘I’m just treating this like any other open Championship,’ said McIlroy.
‘I’ve played well here for the last few years. I’ve played well on this golf course. So I’ve just got to go out and hit shots and stay in the present. If I just keep putting one foot in front of the other, hopefully by Sunday night that will be good enough.’
In other words, he’s conflicted. How can he ignore his role in getting the open back to the country of his birth, forget that it was his success which made the clamour irresistible?
By the same token, how can he afford to get caught up in the hullabaloo and expectation?
It may, indeed, be all about McIlroy come Sunday, but if he sets off thinking that, how can he last under the pressure?
Colin Montgomerie’s father was secretary at Royal Troon and every time the open went there, tales were told of Monty being as good as raised on the course.
This was his homecoming, his Lewis Hamilton at Silverstone moment. He knew every hollow and plateau.
And invariably this certainty resulted in a player crushed by the weight of all that hope. In 1997, Montgomerie was tied in 24th place. In 2004, he finished 82nd. Returning as a senior in 2016, he came 78th.
Portrush has even greater significance for McIlroy. It was here he shot 61 as a 16-year-old, a course record that cannot be touched because Portrush has subsequently been redesigned.
yet what is McIlroy supposed to do? Pretend? Feign ignorance? His name is up there on the wall of the clubhouse.
By the time he finished that record-breaking round, half of the town were trailing him around the links. All he can do is embrace his exalted status and admit the advantage it affords him.
‘yeah, I think experience helps,’ admitted McIlroy. ‘There are a lot of approach shots here that are visually more intimidating than they play. Thomas Bjorn walked a few holes with me on Tuesday and I hit a nice little draw over the right-hand bunker on three. It looked like it was missing the green by a mile, but when we got up there it was in the middle. He said, “I wouldn’t have thought that”. It’s just little things, knowing where the lines are.
‘I’m more comfortable here than at some of the other open venues. I’ve played well here before. I know what I’m doing.
‘I was worried at first. I came in last Saturday thinking the course will have changed, the set-up might be different. But it’s still the same place. I had dinner booked. I hadn’t seen my mum in three months.
‘I thought I was going to have to spend some time around the greens to prepare and then I got on the road home and rang them and said, “Can we move dinner up?” Because I’d finished early. There’s no difference. It’s the same course.
‘I was making it bigger in my head than it needed to be. I’ve played this place enough times to know where to miss it, where not to miss it. no matter if there’s grandstands or people or not, it’s the same golf course.’
And if, at the end of it, the name of northern Ireland’s greatest golfer is not on the Claret Jug, well he has still contributed immeasurably to arguably the biggest sporting week in the history of his country.
McIlroy was asked what constituted a major event when he was growing up. He cited northern Ireland football internationals, Ulster rugby matches, the north West 200 motorcycle race.
‘If you really wanted to get a sense of what a huge sporting occasion was, you maybe had to go down to Dublin for an Ireland
rugby international, or across the water to see Manchester United play,’ he conceded. Yet this week’s crowd is 237,750 — the biggest for an Open outside St Andrews.
‘I think it just means people have moved on,’ said McIlroy. ‘It’s a different time, a very prosperous place. I’m very fortunate that I grew up just outside Belfast and I never saw anything, I was oblivious to it.
‘I remember I watched a movie a couple of years ago called ’ 71, about a British soldier who gets stationed at the Palace Barracks in Holywood. That is literally 500 yards from where I grew up. It basically follows him on a night of the Troubles. And I remember asking my mom and dad “Is this actually what happened?”
‘It’s amazing to think, 40 years on, it’s such a great place, no one cares who they are, where they’re from and what background. You can have a great life and it doesn’t matter what side of the street you come from.
‘The legacy of this tournament is that we are able to have this tournament here again. It speaks volumes of where the country and the people are now. We’re so far past that and it’s wonderful.’
Now, it must be said banners in support of Soldier F in Belfast and Coleraine, the prospect of an Orange march in Portrush on Saturday and murals celebrating William of Orange and the Battle of the Boyne suggest not all of Northern Ireland has escaped history. There could be a further reckoning around a no- deal Brexit, too.
Yet, for this week at least, what matters in Northern Ireland is golf and one golfer in particular.
‘It can go one of two ways, right?’ added McIlroy. ‘I’ve always felt I’ve played my best golf when I’ve been totally relaxed and loose. And maybe this environment is what I need.
‘I’m not saying this is the way I’m going to approach it. I’m still going to try to go out and shoot good scores and concentrate and do all the right things.
‘But it’s wonderful for this country, and golf in general, and to be quite a big part of it is an honour and a privilege. I want to keep reminding myself of that because it is bigger than me, right?
‘And if you can look at the bigger picture and see that, it takes some pressure off. I still want to play well and concentrate, but at the same time just having that perspective might make me relax a little more.’
That’s the plan. The reality will be discovered on the first tee at 10.09 this morning. Until then at least, in Northern Ireland, optimism abounds.