MEN’S BELLIES AND children’s throats were pressed against the ropes that paved the way to the first tee, atmosphere taut and phones drawn in anticipation.
“Tiger’s on his way, lads”, joked the marshal between the ropes.
Rory has inherited Woods’ grandeur now, and this week he lent it to the Irish Open. This event deserves it: it has been bounced around the calendar and has eddied in the hierarchy of the nation’s favourite events, but today was a reminder of its shimmering potential. It admittedly helps when the sun is shining in profuse apology for what it gave us in July and August.
Fans orienteered their way around the course, speaking about their glimpse of the biggest names; ticking them off like tourist attractions: Rory, Padraig, Shane, Horschel and, whatchacallhimagainohyeah Min Woo Lee.
But only Lowry could rival Rory’s gravitational pull here, which is so strong he hauled the Florida heat across the Atlantic Ocean in his wake. Great herds of people moved after McIlroy from the moment of his first tee shot, scrambling for a patch of high ground like townspeople escaping a flood. They craned their necks and dangled their phones and dignified him with shouts of G’waaaan Rory in favour of the moronic mottos of American crowds.
“I feel the Rorys here are more visceral”, said McIlroy of the crowd’s shouts after his round. “They live and die with every shot.”
Today he let them do more livin’ than dyin’.
McIlroy birdied the first and escaped with a par from the second, having brushed a few low-hanging leaves in punching a shot out of the rough. He made par on the third and then left an eagle putt on the par-five fourth all of one inch short of the hole, the crowd wreathing the green in a gasp of disbelief.
It’s golf’s abiding frustration: how, in the face of all this Size, a few maddening inches still make all the difference. McIlroy went out in 33 but it could easily have been better, as he saw a birdie putt on nine loop around the hole and then spin painfully out. The most impressive putt of the front nine came on the par-four seventh. It played as the toughest hole on the course and McIlroy then made it tougher by spraying his tee shot out of bounds, taking a drop before rescuing par with a putt from just inside six feet.
The 10th and 11th brought another pair of agonising near-misses. First he shaved the hole with what would have been an eagle chip-in from the back of the green, and then came just as close with a birdie putt from the fringe.
But then he squared his crosshairs, birdieing 12 and 13. A couple of pars followed before he returned to the 16th, a hole on which he keeps on layering narrative. There’s a plaque on its fairway in his honour, memorialising his magical three-wood into the green on his way to victory on the final day in 2016. He couldn’t have tried to replicate it today even if he tried, as he broke his three-wood on the sixth tee. (He diplomatically described its damage resulting from a “flick” at the tee-marker.)
At 16 he veered slightly left and into the semi-rough, from where a right-sided pin by the water proved dangerously tempting. The ball squirted out right, kicked off a jutting piece of rock on the green’s sloping face, and bounced into the water.
He couldn’t bemoan bad luck for long. McIlroy took a drop from the fairway but didn’t adjust for a sudden breeze. But rather than drop straight into the water, it caught an inch of exposed rock and bounced up and onto the green. He missed a putt for par, took a bogey for which he briefly cursed himself before acknowledging it was an acceptable price.
How's your luck?! 😰
— DP World Tour (@DPWorldTour) September 9, 2023
Having found the water at 16, @McIlroyRory finds the green after a VERY fortunate bounce off the rocks. #HorizonIrishOpen pic.twitter.com/mc5afI4ue4
McIlroy said afterwards that the hole’s layout and his distance means it is uniquely built for “drama” (he eagled it yesterday), so goodness knows what’s to come tomorrow. Not everyone was rapt by it all: as McIlroy walked along the river bed to the 17th tee, he passed a man fly-fishing blithely, waist-deep in the Liffey.
McIlroy instead cast a couple of closing spells. He instantly got his shot back by birdieing 17, and then blasted a monstrous, 346-yard down the final fairway to set up a closing birdie.
He signed for a six-under 66, his best round of the week and one not bettered by anyone else in the field today. He left the course just one shot off the lead, though was too modest to admit his presence on the leaderboard will unsettle the other contenders.
He wasn’t at his best, but McIlroy’s B-game is still utterly magnetic.
“Everytime I get myself in contention, I don’t feel my absolute best to get into contention”, he said after his round. “Then whenever I am in contention I am playing against guys who are playing at their best.
“I felt very solid today. I didn’t feel I did anything special.”
It sure didn’t feel like that to the rest of us.