He carded a 1-under par 70 in round one of the tournament at Portrush. This performance was a big rebound for him. After a rough first trip out after our last mention, where he triple-bogeyed 8 and ended with an opening score of 79, he did in fact miss the cut.
As McIlroy approached the course, he faced the challenge of managing expectations, especially considering the emotional weight of returning to his home country. In 2019 he couldn’t handle the scrutiny and the intensity of that environment, infamously obliterating a hole during that tournament. “I didn’t know how I was going to feel this time,” he remarked, reflecting on his past experience.
Even with a subpar driving performance to start this big, missing two of 14 fairways, McIlroy proved a world class scrambler. After going way off the fairway on one hole, he kept cool enough to hold the damage to a single bogey. On 16 and 17, he snatched those opportunities and turned them into birdies. At the completion of the 10th hole, he was 3-under par on the day and making his way to the top of the leaderboard.
As expected, it was McIlroy’s play that really goosed the audience. “Come on Rory!” and “Let’s go Rory!” rang out all day from dozens of kids. He acknowledged the unique atmosphere, stating, “Look, I feel the support of an entire country out there, which is a wonderful position to be in, but at the same time, you don’t want to let them down.”
He missed every fairway on the front nine, yet remained poised. He gave a thumbs-up to how he was doing in the competition. Just three behind with 54 holes left,” he said, which underscored his feeling that there was plenty of time to get into contention.
The gallery’s welcome throughout the round was especially heartening for McIlroy, who termed the experience “absolutely incredible.” This shocking decision appeared to enhance his on-course performance.
Whatever happens in Friday’s third round, Rory McIlroy will head into them this weekend with a lot of confidence and momentum. Or, at the very least, he needs to recover rapidly from missteps taken early on. Mastery of this new skill will be integral in ascending the leaderboard and battling for first.
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