The loyalist bands were out in force in Portrush on Saturday evening, for a two-hour parade that shut down all the traffic in and out of town. The R&A did its best to funnel the paying spectators in the other direction as they walked off the course, but there were still plenty of bewildered golf fans who got caught up in it all. I was one of them myself. While I wouldn’t want to contradict the organisers’ description of it as a “cultural extravaganza”, if I had one note to pass on it may be that these sorts of local folk traditions go over better with the tourists when they don’t have sectarian overtones and a heavy police presence.
On the links, there was a different side of Ireland on show. Northern Irish or from the Republic, Nationalist or Unionist, Catholic or Protestant, whatever else divides the 300,000-odd people who attended in the past week, they were all united in collective yearning to see Rory McIlroy make that next birdie.
They were packed four, five, six deep when McIlroy walked out for his final round at two in the afternoon, the crowd stretched all down the fairway and around the green. There must have been 10,000 people at that one hole, every one of them joined in a silent communion as he lined up his opening drive. You’ve heard how much people here love McIlroy, you’ve read how much people here love McIlroy, and you’ve seen how much people here love McIlroy, but in all honesty you can’t really understand the strength of their feeling until you’ve walked the course with him. Just ask his playing partner, Matt Fitzpatrick. “I’ve heard enough ‘Rorys’ to last me a lifetime.”
And the rest. “I love you, Rory,” screamed a girl on the 2nd. “I named my eldest child after you, Rory,” shouted a man on the 5th. There were a hundred or so people up top on the great big dune that backs on to the beach by the 7th tee, waiting all day to get a free peek at him as he came past.
This has been McIlroy’s Open and he didn’t even win the thing. The two were tied inextricably in the minds of everyone in the country who was following the tournament, so the first thing anyone wants to know whenever you mention you’re at the Open is whether or not you saw Rory, and the next thing anyone says whenever the competition comes up in conversation is whether he’s in contention. He was playing in the penultimate group, but you would never have guessed it from the way the crowd swelled around him. They surged from one hole to the next to keep up with him, so that behind him Scottie Scheffler often arrived at the green in time to find everyone turning away.
Matt Fitzpatrick, Rory McIlroy’s playing partner, said he heard enough shouts of ‘Rory’ to ‘last a lifetime’. Photograph: Charlie Crowhurst/R&A/Getty Images
All those hours in the gym mean McIlroy’s got broad shoulders, but it’s a hell of a weight he’s carrying. It was too much for him the first time he played in an Open at Portrush, in 2019, but it has been a joy to see him revel in it in the past week. He seems to have enjoyed every minute of playing here. “I think I feel a lot of gratitude and a lot of pride,” he said. “A lot of pride that I am from these shores, and with the way I’ve played and advocated for this little country.”
It was clear as early as the 1st green that it wasn’t going to be his day. You could even say it was obvious as early as Friday evening, when Scheffler shot to the top of the leaderboard. The man has a way of making the game inevitable once he’s in that position. Death, taxes and Scheffler making the most of a winning position. It would have taken something magical to catch the world No 1 and, well as he was playing, McIlroy just didn’t have his conjuring touch. It was a round of nearlys and not quites, from the 40ft birdie putt that just stayed up on the 1st, to the 34ft birdie putt that passed only a millimetre wide on the 7th.
He was honest enough to admit that he was never going to get to the 17 under he would have needed to catch Scheffler. He wound up in seventh, 10 under and seven shots back: “8, 9, and 10 were the ones that killed me. I could have maybe finished second, which would have been better, but only making par off those tee shots on 8 and 9 and then the double bogey at 10 did me in.”
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He had a rueful grin on his face as he made the last long walk up to the 18th green. “It’s been an amazing week, I feel so thankful and just so lucky that I get to do this, I get to do this in front of this crowd,” he said. “I’ve gotten everything I wanted out of this week. Apart from a Claret Jug.”
By his own reckoning, he has got two shots left at it. “Hopefully I’ll have one or two Opens left here, if the R&A decide to keep coming back, probably one while I’m still competitive, and another one while I’m more grey than I already am.”