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Gollan, Scotland – Well, that would be appropriate, right?
A day before Rory McIlroy returns to Royal Liverpool FC as the Open Championship favourite, he will enter Sunday’s Scottish Open as the 54-hole leader. For what feels like the umpteenth time this season (and what our records tell us it actually is third time), he’ll hold onto the lead heading into the event’s final round, which is a solid victory in the realm of odds – and the Open Championship hype train that follows isn’t far behind.
Of course, it would only be fitting for McElroy to take his first win of the PGA Tour season here at the Scotsman. He’s played some of the best golf of anyone alive over the past month and has had a streak of heartbreak and no wins to show for it.
His gameplay is getting closer again, he says, and it’s easier for him to “find” it now than at any other time in recent memory. He also hasn’t won since winning in Dubai in January, which marks a surprisingly cold streak for a golfer for McIlroy’s ability and track record.
It would also be fitting for him to get his first win of the season hours before he faced the full brunt of anticipation at Hoylake. He’s already the presumed best bet at the start of the week – a product of both this latest record and his first championship win of 2014, also at Royal Liverpool.
McIlroy will already be the most talked about name on the site in the wake [gestures vaguely at the state of professional golf]. Now it’s entirely possible that he’s doing those things while also getting his latest win with less than a day to go. Considering how the last eighteen months (and to some extent, nine years) have gone by, that wouldn’t be surprising.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
McIlroy (-13) likely won’t win on Sunday. He leads by only one margin in the final round at Al-Nahda Club, and leads the leaderboard behind him. Tom Kim is back for once. Tommy Fleetwood in the back. Shane Lowry returns three times. Max Homma plays with four players.
The good news, if that’s you Rory, is that things are meant to happen difficult tomorrow. Winds are going up to 40 mph in the forecast, along with steady rain. For the second day in a row, the DP World Tour has raised their pole times in order to adjust to the weather. But that’s about the end of the good news if you’re Rory. Is it possible that the thing you want the most is also the worst thing for you?
“Again, I can’t even predict the good outcome because we haven’t seen the conditions yet,” he said. “But I will say anything in the red numbers tomorrow is going to be a great result.”
There’s a real chance Rory will fight it out on the court at the Scottish Open, but on Saturday night at Golan, it certainly looks like he’s fighting the inevitable.
“I remember my first Scottish Championships at Loch Lomond in 2005,” he said on Saturday. “Eighteen years is too long for me to get a trophy.”