PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland \u2014\u00a0Scottie Scheffler\u00a0was walking down the first fairway at Royal Portrush when a shout came from outside the ropes: \u201cGo Rory!\u201d<\/p>\n
They were all over the Dunluce Links again Sunday, those passionate supporters of Rory McIlroy cheering on their favourite son in the final act of his homecoming \u2014 whether they were watching him or not.<\/p>\n
The big disappointment for McIlroy was that he couldn\u2019t deliver what they craved.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been an awesome week,\u201d McIlroy said after shooting 2-under 69 to tie for seventh at the British Open. \u201cI\u2019ve gotten everything I wanted out of this week apart from a claret jug, and that\u2019s just because one person was just a little bit better than the rest of us.\u201d<\/p>\n
That might be an understatement.<\/p>\n
Scheffler, the world No. 1, won by four shots to capture his fourth major title. He was seven strokes clear of McIlroy and playing on a different level in this pretty corner of Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n
McIlroy even acknowledged as much.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s an incredible player,\u201d he said of Scheffler. \u201cHe\u2019s been dominant this week. Honestly, he\u2019s been dominant for the last couple years. He is the bar that we\u2019re all trying to get to.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for Scheffler, he could only apologize for spoiling the McIlroy party.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know I wasn\u2019t the fan favourite today,\u201d he said, grinning, in his post-round speech on No. 18, \u201cbut I did hear a lot of USA and Dallas, Texas chants.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scheffler might have won two majors this year and asserted himself as the game\u2019s dominant player. Yet, for many, 2025 still belongs to McIlroy after\u00a0his dramatic win at the Masters\u00a0in April to complete the career Grand Slam.<\/p>\n
Fans came in droves this week to celebrate McIlroy\u2019s achievements, and produced some of the loudest roars he has ever heard on a golf course.<\/p>\n
If McIlroy didn\u2019t quite deliver, then Royal Portrush \u2014 where he shot 61 as a 16-year-old for the course record \u2014 certainly did, gaining widespread rave reviews.<\/p>\n
When the Open returned to Portrush in 2019 for the first time in 68 years, McIlroy was so emotional he hit his opening drive out-of-bounds, shot 79 and\u00a0missed the cut.<\/p>\n
He made amends six years later.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel so thankful and just so lucky that I get to do this in front of this crowd,\u201d McIlroy said. \u201cHopefully I\u2019ll have one or two Opens left here, if the R&A decide to keep coming back \u2014 probably one while I\u2019m still competitive and another one while I\u2019m more grey than I already am.\u201d<\/p>\n
McIlroy started Sunday six strokes back from Scheffler after a wild third-round 66, and needed a minor miracle to catch his big rival.<\/p>\n
He got up-and-down for birdie at the par-5 second hole but couldn\u2019t make a fast enough start. A bogey at No. 4, after missing the green with his approach, was a mistake he couldn\u2019t afford and he suddenly was eight shots adrift of Scheffler, who played as steady as ever.<\/p>\n
A double at No. 10 ended his hopes.<\/p>\n
McIlroy couldn\u2019t reproduce his Saturday charge but at least played all four days this time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI tried as best as I could to keep my emotions in check, especially walking up the last there and that reception,\u201d McIlroy said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just been incredible to come back here and to play and at least feel like I had a chance today going out there. Just an awesome week.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland \u2014\u00a0Scottie Scheffler\u00a0was walking down the first fairway at Royal Portrush when a shout came from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11856,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-11855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}