Why I didn’t play in the French and Scottish Open

RORY MCILROY breezed into Royal St George’s yesterday afternoon confident he has got his preparations for tomorrow’s British Open first round spot on.

The US Open champion had taken some flak from some quarters, including his Ryder Cup captain Colin Montgomerie, for taking three weeks off following his eight-stroke triumph at Congressional CC last month.

Montgomerie felt McIlroy could have done with a tournament in his schedule before heading into the third major of the year. Instead, as his homecoming celebrations in Holywood continued, McIlroy withdrew from the French Open in the middle of that three-week spell and rather than play the Scottish Open last week — which was curtailed to 54 holes anyway due to heavy rain — he played two practice rounds at Royal St George’s as well as taking in some more links golf at Royal Co Down.

“I’m glad about (missing the Scottish Open) after looking what happened in Scotland last week,” McIlroy joked. “But I was scheduled to play in the French Open and if I had have went into it I knew I wouldn’t be giving the best of myself or been able to practice or prepare properly. Every event I go into I want to have a chance to win. I knew my preparation wouldn’t have been good enough going into France to have a chance. So I thought, you know what, let’s just get everything out of the way and make sure that your preparation going into The Open is as good as it could be, and that’s really what I’ve done.

“For me it’s all about preparation. I went into the Masters after three weeks off and shot three pretty good scores there, so it’s not a problem to me not playing competitive golf after having a break.”

McIlroy also kept up a pre-Open tradition by playing Royal Co Down on Monday evening in the company of his father Gerry, who had shared in his US Open success with an embrace on the 18th green at Congressional last month.

“We went to Royal Co Down at about 7:00 and it was just me and him on the golf course, basically nobody else. I played nine holes and he walked around... it was a really nice moment. We did the exact same thing last year going into St Andrews. It brought back a lot of memories, playing with my dad, long summer nights, teeing off at 5pm and getting in at 9 o’clock.’’