McIlroy: the course is not as easy as people are saying

By Charlie Mulqueen Killarney

Friday, July 30, 2010

RORY McILROY knew for sure it was going to be a different kind of day when he arrived on the first tee shortly before 8am yesterday.

Instead of the usual handful of fans that usually congregate at that time, the place was packed with highly excited fans who couldn’t wait to see McIlroy and his partners Darren Clarke and Rhys Davies click into action.

"It was fantastic," he enthused. "I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many on the first hole at that time. The weather helped to bring them out but they really enjoy their golf down here."

McIlroy certainly tried to give the fans what they wanted to see. With a typical display of aggressive, confident shot making, he birdied four of the first seven and as that is generally regarded as the easiest stretch on the course, it presaged even greater things to come.

However, much of the wind was taken out of Rory’s sails when he bogeyed 8 and 9 and even though he picked up four gains on the way home, he again dropped another couple of strokes and also failed to birdie the long 16th. So 67 was the most he could have scored.

"Everybody was talking about the course being so easy and that 20 under was going to win," he noted. "I’m not so sure. It’s not as easy as people are saying. They can tuck the pins away and put them in awkward positions. I don’t think people are giving it the respect that they should. It’s a fantastic venue, a fantastic location and definitely worthy of the Irish open. I know there are better golf courses in Ireland but if they don’t want to have the Irish Open..."

McIlroy and Clarke were playing partners for the first time in tournament golf yesterday and both clearly enjoyed themselves fully.

McIlroy said of Clarke: "Darren seems rejuvenated in some way and, yeah, there are similarities. We are both good ball strikers, very solid from tee to green. He’s on a nice run of form, his confidence up from getting into contention in Scotland and playing at St Andrews and with Tiger on the Saturday. He’s moving back home to Portrush in a couple of weeks time, he’s got the vice captaincy of the Ryder Cup and I think he’s just enjoying himself at the moment."

One of the most impressive performances of the day came from another Ulster man, Michael Hoey, who delighted himself not only with a five under 66 but also by the fact that he kept a bogey off his card.

"I had a slightly slow start but there were plenty of pars over the first six," he related. "The 6th is a tough par 3 and we were waiting on the tee box for 25 minutes so to just sort of keep it going at level is okay. I birdied 10; 11 is almost a par 5 length so that was almost like a sort of birdie and a half, if you like, and I birdied 13. I’m really happy there were no bogeys. I probably only had 10 rounds in my life without a bogey. So the more of those the better."

This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Friday, July 30, 2010