Half a dozen strokes in arrears to Scheffler – who carded a bogey-free 67 to open up a four-shot cushion over Li Haotong – McIlroy is unlikely to win. <\/p>\n
Hoisting the Claret Jug on home turf was, of course, his target, but he seems willing to treat this week as his soul-stirring post-Masters homecoming. <\/p>\n
McIlroy is 36. It is unclear when Portrush will next host the Open, but there is no guarantee the five-time major winner will still be one of the game’s superstars when it does. <\/p>\n
With that, both player and fans have been keen to savour every moment this week after McIlroy admitted to not holding up his end of the bargain in 2019. <\/p>\n
The fans certainly have all week. From getting out of their beds for his early-Monday morning practice round to gathering in astonishing numbers on Saturday, they have energised and lifted him at every turn. <\/p>\n
On Saturday, in particular, the chants of “Rory, Rory, Rory” against the backdrop of roars from other parts of the course gave the afternoon a Ryder Cup Sunday-feel. <\/p>\n
“I’ve come here really just trying to embrace it,” he said. <\/p>\n
“If I hadn’t have won a major this year, if I hadn’t have won the Masters, I might have felt differently. <\/p>\n
“It’s almost a celebration of what I’ve been able to accomplish. I want to celebrate with them too. I’ve just really tried to embrace everything this week. <\/p>\n
“I’m having an incredible time. I’m really enjoying myself, and I feel like I’ve given myself half a chance now, and I’m excited for tomorrow.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Half a dozen strokes in arrears to Scheffler – who carded a bogey-free 67 to open up a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10219,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-10218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}