The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
JEFF JACOBS
Course aficionado Rory McIlroy having fun again
SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. — Rory McIlroy talks about golf courses the way only the most serious baseball devotees discuss old ballparks. He is more than detailed and nuanced. He cherishes them as works of art.
So here he was Wednesday, in the midst of dissecting Shinnecock Hills for the 118th U.S. Open, talking about how he had played 18 rounds of golf in 19 days, some for business, some only for fun. And when McIlroy was finished you were left convinced he had found as much pleasure examining the Long Island intricacies of Friar’s Head as he did decompressing with some buddies.
That part of it should make Nathan Grube, tournament director of the Travelers Championship, especially happy. One of the game’s great course critics thinks TPC River Highlands is a work of art.
When the Northern Irishman arrived in Cromwell last year to play the Travelers Championship for the first time, McIlroy, who is shooting for his fifth major title this week, called River Highlands a hybrid of the Firestone Country Club in Akron and Quail Hollow in Charlotte. He called it his sort of course. He said he loved it. It also took him until the final round to heat up for a 64 to finish 17th.
Was he dissuaded? Not a bit. McIlroy will be back next week. He even told
Andy Bessette of Travelers that he plans to win the event. Certainly, this is well short of predicting his second victory at the U.S. Open, something McIlroy didn’t dare do Wednesday with Americans dominating golf. Yet winning the 2018 Travelers, with the world’s No. 2, 4, 6 and 9 and 13 in the field — including all four defending major titlists — would be no small accomplishment.
“Rory said all the right things at our event last year, I couldn’t have scripted it any better for what I’d want a guy of his caliber to say,” Grube said. “But this is kind of crazy. Somebody emailed a 20-minute interview he did last fall in Europe.
“He was asked what his favorite golf courses were. He went through the classics and then he goes, ‘I played one this year in the U.S. that I fell in love with. I could play it for years to come.’ The fact that our course made such an impression on him even after three, four months, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if he ended up winning the Travelers.”
McIlroy — No. 6 in the world after stumbling in the final round for a fifth in the Masters and with one Tour victory at the Arnold Palmer — hasn’t competed since an eighth at Memorial on June 3. He has spent a few weeks
on Long Island, played National a couple of times, admiring its history and architecture brought over from Scotland. Nothing like a principal’s nose bunker to give him chills. McIlroy ventured closer to New York and played Garden City. He was eager to see what Coore & Crenshaw had done at Friar’s Head and determined it was one of the best he played. Not only for the design, but for the setting and the scenery, calling 14 and 15 two of the prettiest golf holes he’d ever seen. Reminded him of Cypress Point near Monterrey, Calif. The art critic loved it.
What he doesn’t love is the USGA putting together All-Star threesomes for the first two rounds of the U.S. Open that starts Thursday. There’s Tiger Woods-Dustin Johnson-Justin Thomas in one and McIlroy-Phil Mickelson-Jordan Spieth. They will draw enormous galleries and lots of noise.
“I get what they’re doing, and the U.S. Open has always done that,” McIlroy said. “But at a major championship, I don’t think the anticipation level can get any higher anyway … I don’t know if it’s just a little bit contrived for my liking. I think the primary objective is trying to get those guys in contention on a Sunday.”
At 48, Mickelson is looking Father Time in the mug as he tries to complete the Grand Slam. He has five
total major victories, but six runner-up finishes at the U.S. Open, including a few epic meltdowns. He is a huge New York favorite.
“It’s not as if Phil has a poor U.S. Open record,” said McIlroy, who at 29 has yet to win the Masters. “His U.S. Open record is incredible. Someone’s played a little better on a certain week or maybe he made a mistake at the wrong time.
“If I wasn’t playing and purely as a fan of golf, I’d love to see Phil win this week because it’s great for the game. Huge story.”
For years, McIlroy said, he never played fun golf. Everything was preparing for tournaments. When his dad became a member at Seminole in Jupiter Beach, Fla., that changed.
“Playing with him, I really started to enjoy fun golf again,” McIlroy said. “It’s a treat to be able to show up at any course in the world and get out and play. It does put you in a different frame of mind. If I’ve got a shot that I need to execute under pressure this week at Shinnecock, it’s no different than playing that shot when I’m out with my dad or my buddies.”
The Shinnecock fairways are wider and the greens are more manageable than the disaster the USGA produced here in 2004. The lords of American golf seemed bent on punishing the world’s best and in turning the
greens to cement, especially No. 7, they humiliated themselves.
Asked in considering the U.S. Open whether golfers should be tested or punished, McIlroy answered, “Tested, but punished if you hit a bad shot.” Then he went on a detailed, nuanced spiel about prevailing winds.
“I love the golf course, especially with how conditions have been, with a bit of wind and dryness. The way it’s playing reminds me of some of the courses from back home a little.
“It really depends on the wind direction here. It could be seven-eight drivers or three-four. I think it’s been great for a lot of the guys that we’ve already been able to see this course in different winds. This is primarily a second-shot golf course. The biggest challenge is being disciplined.”
Actually, the biggest challenge are the Americans. Johnson is No. 1 in the world. The U.S. holds all the major team titles in the world right now. And with Thomas, Spieth, Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed they hold all the four major titles, too. All four will be at the Travelers.
“That’s a lot of pressure,” Rory McIlroy said.
Nothing an outstanding course can’t handle.