It changed things that McIlroy returned this go \u2019round with a longer resume. As perhaps you heard, he is a Masters champion and a career grand-slam winner. Maybe that lessened the pressure, but it certainly didn\u2019t lessen the spectacle. A coffee shop in town renamed itself to Rory and Bert\u2019s. An ice cream shop made an mural of McIlroy\u2019s face in sprinkles. The event at Royal Portrush sold out almost immediately, to the tune of more than 200,000 tickets, each of whom showed up early, eager to see the sequel.<\/p>\n
![\"Rory](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/RoryMcIlroy_Portrush_Win.jpg\")
\n Rory McIlroy at Royal Portrush.<\/p>\n
Getty Images<\/p>\n
ON MCILROY\u2019S FINAL FEW HOLES, there were moments that mattered. At No. 16, the course\u2019s signature, devilish par-3, he escaped with a curling par putt that sent the crowded hillside into joyous applause. At No. 17 he executed a masterful short-sided up-and-down from a greenside bunker, and after he\u2019d holed his par putt he waited for one minute, then two, then three, as his caddie Harry Diamond finished a fastidious rake job, so that the two sons of Northern Ireland could walk to the final hole together. And after a tidy chip from long of the 18th green, McIlroy marked his two-footer for par and let playing partner Matthew Fitzpatrick finish out first. He savored the moment and the past-capacity bleachers did, too, and they cheered as he holed that final putt and removed his cap and turned and waved in each direction, lingering a final few seconds before he disappeared into the tunnel. He\u2019d finished T7, seven shots off Scheffler\u2019s winning score. Any other week that would have been disappointing. This week it seemed like far more.<\/p>\n
McIlroy has had plenty of teary post-major moments in recent years, but this wasn\u2019t one of them. He took a moment to compose himself en route to scoring; by the time he spoke to reporters he knew exactly what he wanted to say.<\/p>\n
He heaped praise on runaway winner Scottie Scheffler, calling his current run one of the most prolific in the game\u2019s history. \u201cAnd he\u2019s a great person, and I think he\u2019s a wonderful ambassador for our game, as well,\u201d McIlroy added.<\/p>\n
He glowed about the host venue, calling Royal Portrush \u201cone of the best two or three venues that The Open goes to.\u201d That echoed widespread sentiment from this week\u2019s players; there\u2019s a sense that St. Andrews\u2019 Old Course is No. 1 by default but Portrush measures up to any other stop on the rota.<\/p>\n
And he explained, briefly, what the week had meant to him, trying to express his gratitude in the process. He said he felt a lot of pride \u201cthat I\u2019m from these shores.\u201d He said how glad he was the Open had returned. He said he\u2019d remember his reception on No. 18 for a long time.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been an amazing week, just \u2014 I feel so thankful and just so lucky that I get to do this in front of this crowd,\u201d he 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 gray than I already am.\u201d<\/p>\n
That was a humbling admission. We\u2019ve grown so accustomed to McIlroy being a top-five player in the game that the idea of him someday not being competitive is jarring. But there\u2019s power in scarcity; part of what made this Open so meaningful was knowing it wouldn\u2019t soon be back.<\/p>\n
In all, the week felt like closure for McIlroy. He arrived at Royal Portrush with unfinished business; he left with a more-than-respectable finish and a catalog of unforgettable moments. Sunday\u2019s final round also marked the conclusion of a major championship season that saw McIlroy\u2019s wildest golf dreams fulfilled but also left him at times frustrated and lost. It was notable, then, that McIlroy acknowledged the he was leaving at peace.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve gotten everything I wanted out of this week apart from a Claret Jug,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
McIlroy was being whisked away when a reporter lobbed one more question his way. All week, McIlroy said, he\u2019d tried to keep his emotions in check. Was there a moment that the gravity of all of this \u2014\u00a0the adoration, the pressure, the ovations, the sheer meaning of it all \u2014 had landed? Had it hit him, what it means to come home?<\/p>\n
He smiled.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot yet,\u201d he said. And with that he bounded off the podium and headed for the exits. Scheffler\u2019s coronation was about to begin. McIlroy strode off into the night, finally alone, for the moment. Seagulls cried out overhead.<\/p>\n
Dylan Dethier welcomes your comments at dylan_dethier@golf.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n “><\/p>\n Dylan Dethier<\/p>\n Dylan Dethier is a senior writer for GOLF Magazine\/GOLF.com. The Williamstown, Mass. native joined GOLF in 2017 after two years scuffling on the mini-tours. Dethier is a graduate of Williams College, where he majored in English, and he\u2019s the author of 18 in America<\/a>, which details the year he spent as an 18-year-old living from his car and playing a round of golf in every state.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland \u2014\u00a0For a moment, all you could hear were the seagulls. The crowd had gone silent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12268,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-12267","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\/12267","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=12267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Dylan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Dethier_headshot1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n