Confident Mcilroy insists he can beat the odds at Birkdale
World No4 is a 20-1 shot but field looks wide open Fleetwood leads home hopes along with Rose
On the beaches where Red Rum was trained and honed his Grand National legend, Rory Mcilroy believes he can be the punters’ pal to bash the bookies. Certainly the Irishman feels that the 20-1 on offer on him winning a second Claret Jug could be proved exceptionally generous by Sunday.
Whilst Mcilroy’s statement was not quite Churchillian – after all, he realises that three missed cuts in his last four events hardly qualify him as the overwhelming favourite – it at least showed that he will be confident when he sets out this afternoon on the Southport links. “This is a good week to back me, I think,” he said.
Perhaps, but there is a reason why he is the biggest price in more than six years to win a major. Off the course, it has been the year of his life for the 28-year-old. Never mind the $10m-a-year deal he signed with Taylormade, he married Erica Stoll in April and the pair have been busy moving into a new Florida home.
On the course, however, it has been more about alarm bells than the wedding variety.
Mcilroy fractured his rib in practice before his first event in South Africa and although he finished runner-up in Johannesburg, it wrecked the first half of his season. Even now, he still feels the pangs, although it is the rust which has truly hurt. Mcilroy desperately needs rounds but he has desperately been missing cuts. He has been playing catch-up in a game of Catch 22. Mcilroy’s putting has gone askew, while his wedge play in the last fortnight has verged on the embarrassing. To compound all this, he had to fix his alignment when arriving here, his swing having been blown out of kilter by the winds at the Scottish and Irish Opens.
When one factors in the clubs switch and the fact there has been a complete overhaul of his equipment in the last three months, then the 20-1 even begins to look rather skinny. He is hanging on a wing and a bit of a prayer.
“All it takes is one week for those odds to go back to, I don’t know, 7-1, 8-1 at Quail Hollow [for next month’s US PGA Championship],” he said. “So this is a good time to have a bet on me.”
In truth, Mcilroy would be a far higher price if there was a dominant player in the game. But this is the era of parity in which strength in depth means weakness of conviction. The last seven majors have crowned first-time champions and it must be a fair gamble that it will happen again here.
So much for the Fab Four who strutted into the season barely looking left and right. Jordan Spieth is the only one of the quartet operating anywhere near his best and that is why he must be the selection to move within a USPGA of completing the career slam.
Jason Day looks totally lost, while a fall down the stairs at the Masters saw world No 1 Dustin Johnson withdrawing from Augusta, just when he appeared to be on the brink of establishing his hegemony.
Johnson’s coach, Butch Harmon, claims his charge is back to full fitness and he has been assured in practice. But Birkdale is a strategist’s paradise and with respect to the Johnsons – both Dustin and his caddie/brother Austin – course management is not the attribute which springs immediately to mind when discussing their candidature.
Yes this is the wide open Open. Purely on form, Tommy Fleetwood, a son of Southport, must have a huge squeak. The 26-year-old finished fourth at the US Open and since then has won the French Open. He is a wonderful ball-striker and is putting better than he ever has before. But the pressure to deliver will be severe.
No Englishman has won an Open for 25 years, since Sir Nick Faldo in 1992. And no Englishman has won an Open on English soil since Tony Jacklin in 1969. Tommy would not merely being doing it for Southport but for St George.
Justin Rose has the best shout of the home guard and what a story it would be if he could complete the circle at the course where he finished fourth at the Open as a 17-year-old amateur.
Everywhere one looks there are question marks. Jon Rahm, Spain’s brilliant 22-year-old, is surely a few Opens short of the Claret Jug, while Hideki Matsuyama, the world No2, still does not convince with his temperament.
Maybe it is wiser to side with the pair who can play with the most freedom. Sergio Garcia, the Masters champion, and Brooks Koepka, the US Open champion, already have their majors for the year and the latter, in particular, would not be afraid to double up.
Or then, maybe Mcilroy is correct and this is the week for him to click as only he can click. The forecast is for gusts rising to 40mph this afternoon and that will not suit. Yet the motivation, he insists, will not be an issue.
“I want to win this week. I don’t need to win. A second Open Championship isn’t going to change my life,” Mcilroy said. “But I’m still as ambitious now as I was starting off my career, if not more so now.
“I made my Open debut at Carnoustie as an amateur 10 years ago and if you told me then I’d be sitting at Birkdale in 2017 as a four-time major winner I’d be, like, yeah, I’ll take that. But having that success, you want to emulate it and want to do it again and again and again.”