Rory McIlroy, right, playing on the 13th fairway during practice rounds at the 2024 Open Championship golf tournament at Royal Troon. Mandatory Credit: Jack Gruber-Imagn Images Rory McIlroy and fun last crossed paths weeks ago, but the 36-year-old Northern Irishman vows to change that at the Genesis Scottish Open this week.
He’s now two weeks removed from his last competitive round and months removed his win in the Masters at Augusta National, snapping an 11-year drought in major championships.
McIlroy enters this tournament more refreshed. He said he all but unplugged from the game the past two weeks following the intent to “sort of hide” and recharge. Following the Scottish Open, which McIlroy won in 2023 and scored a fourth-place finish last year, it’s off to Royal Portrush and the Open Championship in his native Northern Ireland.
“I think I’ve done a good job of that,” McIlroy said Wednesday, recalling just one year ago when he said he couldn’t recall his last holiday. “I missed the cut at Troon [at the 2024 Open] and went straight to Portugal, so that was my first holiday,” McIlroy said Wednesday as he prepares for this week’s Scottish Open at The Renaissance Club in North Berwick, Scotland. “One of my New Year’s resolutions was to have more fun and I’ve really tried to do that.”
He continued:
“Me and a bunch of friends went to Dortmund in January and watched the Borussi Dortmund vs. Bayer Leverkusen game; we then stopped off in Istanbul for a night off on our way over to Dubai. (McIlroy’s 4-year old daughter) Poppy’s starting to learn how to ski, so we went to Montana in February and took a skiing holiday. Yeah, I think there’s opportunities throughout the year that you can do these sorts of things. I think now at this stage of life that I’m at, I’m actually trying to build my schedule around those weeks instead of the other way around, trying to sort of fit them in here or can I take four days off.”
A green jacket that completed the lifetime grand slam in April was a crowning achievement. McIlroy hasn’t been anywhere close to the throne since then.
He finished T19 at the U.S. Open, T47 at the PGA Championship and left the RBC Canadian Open with a missed cut at 9-over — not exactly championship form.
To find it this week, McIlroy will have to contend with a field more loaded than previous iterations of the Scottish Open. With Genesis as a sponsor and co-sanctioned to raise the stakes for PGA Tour players chasing FedEx Cup points, McIlroy anticipated the rise of the event.
“I think there’s a lot that sets this tournament apart. I think a few of the changes that were made to the golf course over the years, I think the majority of the field like the golf course a little better than, say, back in 2019, for example. I know that Pádraig Harrington has made a few little tweaks here and there,” said McIlroy, adding co-sanctioning with the playoffs approaching was a bonus because “it’s sort of crunch time in that race … so that’s a big part of it.”
Then there’s next week — the Open.
McIlroy played his first true round of golf at Royal Portrush and set the course record in 2005. Nostalgia aside, McIlroy assessed the Open at Portrush as a “mountain” he must climb.
And the World No. 2 doesn’t shy away from the significance a win at Portrush would carry, comparing it to taking a U.S. Open title at Pebble Beach or an Open at St. Andrews.
“If venues in golf matter to you, it maybe puts a little bit more pressure on you,” McIlroy said. “So yeah, I would love to win an Open at Portrush, absolutely. But it’s like there’s venues in the game that just mean a little bit more. … Having Portrush from home and the experience I had there last time (2019), you know, I want to — the Friday was amazing, the Thursday, not too much.
“It’s a little like (Novak) Djokovic won the Olympics last year. He knew that was (going) to be his final chance, and you saw the emotion and you saw how much it meant to him. You think about it, and you can’t pretend that it’s not there. But when you are on the golf course, you just have to go out there and play as if you’re not playing at home and just play as if it’s another golf tournament.”
McIlroy won the Open in 2014 and finished in every position in the top five by age 29. His previous turn around Portrush started with a first-round 79 before a thrilling second round for the home crowd and score of 65, narrowly missing the cut.
–Field Level Media
