The 150th Open: The 150th Open is considered to be the “holy grail” of golf, and Rory McIlroy is aiming to break his major drought and win a historic match there.
After a strong start to the year that included top-eight finishes in the first three majors and a successful title defence at the RBC Canadian Open, McIlroy enters the tournament at St. Andrews as one of the pre-tournament favourites.
In 2014, the same year he won the PGA Championship, the most recent of his four major championships, the world No. 2 lifted the Claret Jug. McIlroy was satisfied with the status of his game going into the year’s final men’s major.
“Yeah, I’m playing well,” McIlroy told the media on Tuesday. “I’m in good form. My confidence in my game is as high as it’s been in quite a while.
“I can’t go in here thinking that this might be my time. I just have to go out and play a really good tournament. I’ve got to string four good rounds together, and hopefully, at the end of the week, that’s good enough to win.
“I’m happy where everything’s at, and I just can’t get ahead of myself, and just have to make sure that I prepare well the next couple of days and get myself in the right frame of mind for Thursday.”
McIlroy has only played in one Open tournament at St. Andrews, where he tied for third place in 2010 after shooting a record-tying 63 on the first day and an 80 in the second round. The Northern Irishman was unable to defend his title in 2015 because of an ankle injury sustained while playing football.
In addition, McIlroy said, “I don’t know whether a golfer’s career isn’t complete if they don’t [win at St. Andrews], but I think it’s the holy grail of our sport.” “Winning an Open at St. Andrews is like that; not many individuals will ever have the chance to do it. It is among the highest accomplishments in golf.
“There’s a lot of great players that have won Opens and maybe not had won Opens at St Andrew’s, so I think it’s unfair to say that a golfer’s career isn’t complete without that, but it’s certainly up there with one of the greatest things you can do in our game.”
Some players feel the Old Course might set a new low score this week due to Scotland’s predicted calm weather, but McIlroy thinks the historic layout offers enough difficulties to keep that from happening.
“I don’t think we are going to see it,” McIlroy said. “You can bomb it and get close to the greens but that doesn’t necessarily mean you are going to make birdies.
“I can see it (the winning total) being low, but I can’t see something in the 20 under range. Everyone has seen how firm and fast the fairways are and it’s going to get pretty tricky at the end of the week.”
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