Even though Rory McIlroy is back home playing in his native Northern Ireland, he feels somewhat “detached” from this week’s Irish Open at Royal County Down.
That’s because he is staying at home in his native Holywood, a suburb of Belfast, about an hour’s drive north of Newcastle, the seaside town famous for its Championship Links at Royal County Down.
“Today, I woke up, and usually when you’re at a tournament site, like if I was staying at the Slieve Donard [Hotel] here, you can hear people announced on the first tee, and maybe the first thing you do is check your phone and see how the boys started off, and you check the leaderboard,” McIlroy said.
“Staying an hour away, I’ve felt detached from the tournament this week, which has been quite a nice thing, and haven’t been so wrapped up in it, which is quite nice. Probably the reason why I started well, I would say.”
Indeed, McIlroy ventured down to Newcastle on Monday, stayed home in Belfast on Tuesday, and then returned to Royal County Down on Wednesday for the Pro-Am and his press conference.
He opened with a 3-under 68 on Thursday, sitting in a tie for fourth. He trails Englishman Todd Clements by a pair.
“I felt like I controlled my ball flight well. I’ve been working a little bit on my swing these last couple of weeks. Yeah, it felt a little better,” McIlroy added.
:format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25617944/2170785008.jpg)
“I’ve probably struggled a lot in left-to-right winds this year, so to sort of control my ball flight a bit and test it out there today was good to see that, you know, I was able to do it when I needed to.”
It was not all roses for McIlroy on Thursday, however. He bogied the 14th and 15th holes, which dropped him back to even par for the championship. The crosswinds that blew towards the Irish Sea stumped players all day.
But then the four-time major winner took advantage of Royal County Down’s scorable finish, making birdies on the drivable par-4 16th, the par-4 17th, and the par-5 18th. Those three straight par-breakers will prove crucial over the weekend, considering the nature of this challenging course.
“It’s so bunched. It’s the way the golf course is. It’s hard to go very low, but if you can manage your way around, even if you don’t have your game, you can make a lot of pars,” McIlroy explained.
“So I think it’s going to be one of these tournaments where there’s probably going to be a lot of people with a chance going into Sunday, just because of the nature of the golf course and how it plays. But yeah, it was great after the bogeys on 14 and 15, it was great to birdie these last three holes.”
McIlroy hit two quality iron shots into the 17th and 18th holes, which set up his final two birdies of the day. McIlroy called those two approaches, and the drives he hit on those last two holes, the best four shots he hit all day.
He saved his best for last.
“It’s a tough test, and you know that anything under par [is solid],” McIlroy said.
“I think the strategy that you need to play with is a little bit like a major, but majors obviously bring their own type of pressure as well. But yeah, it’s great atmosphere out there. It’s a difficult golf course, and you have to have your wits about you.”
The Ulsterman’s seclusiveness up in Holywood seems to have paid dividends to this point.
If they continue to do so, McIlroy will leave Royal County Down with his second Irish Open title—much unlike the last time he played this course in completion, in 2015, when he fired an opening round 80. But a lot of golf remains, and as he mentioned, plenty of other viable contenders lurk on the leaderboard. That, coupled with the unpredictability of the weather and the course itself, means that golf fans are in for a treat over the next three days.
Jack Milko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. Be sure to check out @_PlayingThrough for more golf coverage. You can follow him on Twitter @jack_milko as well.
