If Rory McIlroy is feeling the weight of a nine-year major championship drought, he’s certainly playing it off well.
Fresh off a dramatic win at the Scottish Open, McIlroy walked the course at Royal Liverpool in Hoylake, England, on Monday, “refamiliarizing” himself with the site of his lone Open Championship title in 2014.
“Regardless of what happened last week, I’m coming here to try to play a really good major championship,” the 34-year-old told the Golf Channel. “I know my game holds up well in these sorts of tests. Obviously, I’ve got some really good memories of this place from nine years ago.”
That was McIlroy’s third career major triumph at just 25. He would get another at the PGA Championship later that summer, with Jack Nicklaus predicting the Northern Irishman would ultimately win 15 in his career.
However, the major well has run dry since then. McIlroy does have a trio of runner-up finishes in majors over the past eight years — The Open in 2018, last year’s Masters and at the U.S. Open at Los Angeles Country Club in June.
He followed that with a T7 at the Travelers and Sunday’s birdie-birdie finish to snag the Scottish Open out from Robert MacIntyre’s grasp. McIlroy arrived at Royal Liverpool on Monday riding a streak of six consecutive top-10s and has climbed back to No. 2 in the Official World Golf Ranking.
McIlroy thought his chance of winning the Scottish Open was gone after missing a birdie putt on the 16th hole Sunday. But he rebounded with a birdie on 17 and then hit a 2-iron from more than 200 yards to within 10 feet to set up the winning birdie on 18.
McIlroy said hitting those types of pressure shots in blustery conditions shows that his game is in excellent shape to make another run at snapping his major drought.
“You could give me 100 golf balls and I wouldn’t get one as close as that,” McIlroy said of the 2-iron. “I think that’s why my reaction was what it was. I looked at (caddie) Harry (Diamond) and said, ‘I can’t believe I just won this tournament — out of absolutely nowhere!’
“But it was really cool to be able to do it, and it was a special day. I think being able to get it done under those circumstances and in those conditions, that gives me a lot of confidence going forward.”
It completed the “British Isles triple” for McIlroy, who also won the Irish Open in 2016 to go along with The Open in 2014.
McIlroy said after the disappointing runner-up at LACC last month that he will keep showing up at majors and that he’s confident he’ll eventually capture another one. The stars would appear to be aligned for that to happen this week, but as he casually strolled Royal Liverpool on Monday, one would never know if that burden weighs on McIlroy at all.
“Just go out and play my golf and enjoy it. I think that’s always been the way that I’ve played my best golf — playing with a bit of a carefree attitude and enjoying the game for what it is,” he said. “If those are my two goals for the week and I’m able to do that, I’m pretty sure the byproduct is that I’ll be able to play some good golf.”
–Field Level Media