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Hoylake, England – What happened to Rory McIlroy at the Open Championship? Well, this is a bit of a loaded question.
The short answer – the most honest one – is that he lost. Rory shot four rounds on par or better to finish T6, seven shots behind Brian Harman, who drew four rounds unaware Rounds to blow out the rest of the field, including McIlroy, and win the first Claret Jug. In the loss, Rory earned his 30th career top-ten finish and finished his ninth straight year without winning a major championship. Of course, the former has a lot to do with us and our interest in the latter. And if we just wanted short answers, nine years might be the only case that ever mattered.
But the long answer reveals something about the past nine years that might be of interest to Mr. McIlroy. And in this case, the long answer is actually a question: At some point during these past seven months, did Rory lose a little bit of himself?
Something was off. This was evident even to the most passive observer of McIlroy’s early week schedule at Royal Liverpool. First, he canceled his early-week press conference the morning after a thrilling win at the Scottish Open, leaving himself no chance to speak before the final major of the year at the tournament he won in 2014. As the week wore on, he made it a point to keep a low profile, playing a brisk morning training round and barely sticking around for much longer after that. The message was clear: The week was to be about golf and golf only.
In the hours leading up to the tournament, his efforts appeared to be having the intended effect. Nobody knows much about Rory. His voice hadn’t made headlines earlier in the week. His name has appeared less frequently on this site and on others in the industry. As the tournament’s top bookmaker, he wasn’t an afterthought – but despite being the host site’s newest betting champion, he wasn’t the center of attention either.
But then he started playing and everything seemed to fade back to normal. Rory looked sad on the golf course. His game fell into the usual tendencies of a hard-pressing player: very careful at some moments; Too nervous at others. He looked like a Ferrari stuck in first gear – the harder he accelerated, the more frustrated he got. When he spoke after his first round of Par 71, he showed the same attentiveness, but not his usual candidness.
“Two to twelve, to get back to par, I’m very happy,” he said on three different occasions during a single five-question task, a wall steadily placed between himself and a (large) group of media.
The differences in his behavior were especially noticeable when compared to his competitors. While Rory seemed to struggle to fully engage his formidable talent, John Rahm, fiery but unquestionably thoroughbred in his first two rounds, returned to the tournament with one of his life’s rounds on Saturday 63. While Rory spoke briefly and cautiously, Harman, the tournament captain, spoke freely. He seemed completely comfortable in his own skin and honest about the stress of the moment. McIlroy hasn’t spoken yet on Saturday ’69, a Tour that advanced him a bit on the leaderboard but left him reasonably far from the competition.
The irony, of course, is that Rory has spent the better part of the past two decades being exactly that: thoughtful, honest, serious, accessible, passionate. He was the perfect ombudsman for the sport. He’s also played no fewer than tours that showcase the full range of his ability, which is still in its own class in the sport.
The strange part wasn’t that he decided to change the way he presented himself – it was understandable in the wake of so much upheaval in the sport and so much personal attention that had been placed on him. The weird part was: why now?
Maybe he’s just trying to cut himself off from the media and rid himself of any distractions from Championship Week. This is a fair justification. But he does not explain why he is so nervous even when he is no Standing up to a press call, he doesn’t seem to play with any more freedom or joy in the final three majors, even as his media commitments dwindle.
Rory got up Sunday to a safe distance from the lead and his play got up shortly thereafter. He fired a furious return, of the same sort we’ve seen dozens of times over the past nine years, making birdie on three of the first five holes. He ultimately fell one shot short of second place. Brian Harman had run away with a six-shot win, and Rory had gone another year without hitting a big win.
When he returned to the scorer’s area, it seemed like he couldn’t decide whether to scream or cry. But by the time he’s approached the audience again, he’s given his strangest response of the week: apathy.
“I don’t think so,” he said when asked about his least significant streak, which will extend to its 10th year in 2024. I’m just looking forward.”
He smiled as he said that last part. Perhaps some part of him meant it, but even the most passive observer could see that most of him didn’t.
It’s a shame we didn’t get to see that much of Rory, neither at the press fair nor at the track.
Sports are at their best when they are at their best. It looks like Rory is.