Home’s where the heart is for McIlroy

THE Dubai Desert Classic and the Quail Hollow Championship are two of the most prestigious tournaments on the European and US PGA Tours. Both have been won by Rory McIlroy and yet he considers a victory in this week’s 3 Irish Open would rank even higher on his list of golfing achievements.

“I wouldn’t put it ahead of a major but to win in front of your home crowd would be very special,” he said at yesterday’s launch of the EA Sports video game in which he takes the lead role for the first time.

“Pádraig did it at Adare and Shane did it last year at Baltray. It would be very nice to keep that trend going and I would definitely put it ahead of the two that I’ve won, even though they were obviously very major milestones.”

It is impossible to escape the feeling that McIlroy has to be in with a huge chance at Killarney this week. He’s in terrific form after a week off following his roller-coaster ride at the British Open and has liked what he has seen so far of the Killeen layout.

“It’s a nice parkland golf course and quite straightforward,” he says. “If you put the ball in the right position there’s a lot of chances to score out there. Most of the par 5s are reachable and it’s quite a gentle start as well so you’ll probably see a few guys four or five under through seven or eight holes this week.”

The possibility of some player shooting 60 or even better has been mentioned and given his penchant for going low in the past, McIlroy looks capable of being the one to do it. After all, he has recorded 61 at Royal Portrush, 62 at Quail Hollow and 63 at St Andrews so nothing seems impossible for such a rich talent.

“I would like to think I could break 60 some day,” he mused. “I don’t know if it’s going to be this week. There’s definitely a low score out there but nothing any lower than 62 or 61. I can’t see it going crazy but I’d say about 16 or 18 under par would have a very good chance.

“It’s a little breezy but it’s lovely. I played early this morning and in the last four or five holes the breeze got up a bit. It sort of swirls about in the trees here which makes it a bit tricky but yeah, I’d take four days like this It would be nice to play an Irish Open without having to put on your waterproofs!”

McIlroy is unfazed at being the clear favourite at 7/1. He is the top-ranked player in the field (7th in the world at present) and refers to it as simply “a nice piece of extra pressure”. As for his season to date, he gives himself no more than 3/10 for the first half and as much as 8 or 9/10 for the second. He struggled with a back injury early on and described his magnificent victory at Quail Hollow as “coming out of the blue”.

The manner in which he soared to an 80 on the second day of the Open having started with a 63 had many wondering if he had surrendered just a little too easily to the conditions. Rory is not the kind of young man to look for excuses but he makes a fair point in stressing the significance of the weather stoppage that caused a deal of frustration.

“It all got to me a little bit and I suppose that’s something you learn to block out through experience, all part of the learning curve,” he observed.

However, I was one of many deeply impressed at the way he subsequently handled the situation. He could have slunk away and sulked but instead he came out and faced the media and handled himself impeccably for one still of tender years.

“I sort of gathered myself for a couple of minutes and just said ‘yeah, let’s go and do it’,” he explained. “I thought it was a very important thing to do because I could have let it build up inside me a little bit and I could have shot a couple of 72s at the weekend to finish 40th. But I just started fresh on Saturday morning and came out and played really well.

“The 63 was great obviously, but the way I played at the weekend was the most pleasing thing for me about the whole week. I don’t know if anyone shot better than seven under on the weekend and I was very happy at the way I responded.”

Furthermore, he almost has to work to play down his excitement at what lies ahead, not just the 3 Irish Open but next week’s world championship in Ohio, the US PGA Championship, not to mention the FedEx Cup series in the US and, of course, his debut in the Ryder Cup.

Of the PGA, he remarked with a smile: “I’d like to make it one-all with G-Mac,” a reference to his good friend Graeme McDowell’s recent victory in the US Open.