{"id":889880,"date":"2026-09-10T01:08:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T01:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/889880\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T01:08:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T01:08:10","slug":"rory-mcilroy-starts-international-stretch-with-title-defense-at-irish-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/889880\/","title":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy starts international stretch with title defense at Irish Open"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two hundred sixty miles from where he first learned the game, across the border of the Republic of Ireland, down south on the Clare Coast, Rory McIlroy is teeing it up at his national open in Doonbeg. It\u2019s a homecoming, in a way, for McIlroy, though the last time he\u2019d been to this part of the Emerald Isle was \u201cover 20 years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

McIlroy is from Holywood, Northern Ireland. For a man on a golf odyssey who has been everywhere, won everything, and is known by everyone, this island is where he feels at home.<\/p>\n

McIlroy has won the Amgen Irish Open twice, in 2016 and 2025, both at the K Club. Last year was an emotional win for the Ulsterman, as he sunk a dramatic, 28-foot eagle putt to force a playoff with Joakim Lagergren, whom he eventually bested on the third hole of sudden-death. Coming only months after he completed the elusive career Grand Slam, McIlroy described winning his home country\u2019s open in retrospect on Wednesday as a \u201cmagical weekend\u201d and \u201cvery fulfilling.\u201d<\/p>\n

His home Open means so much to him that he has gone as far as lobbying for its champion to receive a Masters invite, saying Wednesday that he \u201cspoke to [Augusta National] Chairman Ridley about this a lot. \u2026 I think, hopefully, at some point, it\u2019s inevitable that that would become a reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

McIlroy has always been a global player, but remarked that in recent years he\u2019s redoubled his efforts to \u201creally focus on this part of the season.\u201d <\/p>\n

This year, he vies for his fifth consecutive Race to Dubai title, and also attempts to equal Colin Montgomerie\u2019s all-time record of eight.<\/p>\n

McIlroy described this tournament stretch of the Irish Open, the BMW PGA at Wentworth (only miles from where he now lives,) the Middle East swing, and the Australian Open, as \u201cvery meaningful to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for the current state of his game, McIlroy\u2019s trending in the right direction, coming off a T-4 in his last start at the Tour Championship after struggling at the FedEx St. Jude Championship.<\/p>\n

\u201cI played Memphis and played very poorly, and was looking at my swing on video and just didn\u2019t like where it was,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In the aftermath, he decided to make swing changes, explaining: \u201cnot changes that are unfamiliar to me. Changes that I\u2019ve had to do before.\u201d<\/p>\n

As McIlroy returns to his homeland this week hoping to lift the trophy again, it\u2019s the perfect time and place for those familiar changes to take shape.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Amgen<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Check out full TV and streaming details for every round of the DP World Tour\u2019s Amgen Irish Open.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two hundred sixty miles from where he first learned the game, across the border of the Republic of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":889881,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-889880","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\/889880","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=889880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/889881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=889880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=889880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=889880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}