PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — “What is the point? Why do I want to win this tournament so bad?”
Prof. Scheffler spoke those words earlier this week, and sports fans, sportswriters — even sports psychs — have been trying to unriddle them ever since. But the answer was never going to come in the press center, where Scheffler had delivered his missive; it was always going to come out there, in the heaving dunes of Royal Portrush.
Look no further than the cameraman sprinting through the fescue just off the 15th tee Saturday afternoon. He held his gear low, near his waist and along the rope-line as fans reached over the nylon, their hands balled into fists. This was as close as stroke play golf has ever come to college basketball. Every dune was its own section of the same home crowd. They alternated chants from one side of the arena to the other, Rory McIlroy’s round playing out on the grassy court beneath them.
That is why anyone would want to win this tournament so badly. Because golf at the highest level, on days like these, is beyond compare. Even if Scheffler wins too much to notice, every week is different. This week has the strongest field on one of the world’s most brilliant courses, playing the trickiest sport of all with the greens made slower, the rough grabbier, the turf firmer and, in the case of this tournament — played on this island for just the third time ever — a crowd as rabid as we’ve ever seen this side of a Ryder Cup.
The moment might have been fleeting — McIlroy is now six back — but the day was no less timeless, because the concept of contending expands when the local lad is in the mix. There was an abundance of bliss on those soon-to-be-sunburnt Irish faces, long before McIlroy birdied three of the first four holes, all while Scheffler was still on the driving range.
It didn’t matter that the greatest player since Tiger Woods was a few holes behind and on his way to an exquisite, bogey-free 67. As soon as McIlroy’s eagle putt from 56 feet on the 12th disappeared, there was no deflating this balloon. He turned and pumped his fist at the nearest grandstand, a rare sight on a Saturday.
Xander Schauffele was standing half a hole away, playing the 17th, when he heard “whatever happened on 12.” He called McIlroy’s performance ”what golf needs.” It might be what golf wants, too, in the wake of McIlroy’s thrilling close out of the career Grand Slam at the Masters in April. The paint is still fresh on McIlroy’s nameplate in the Champions Locker Room at Augusta National, but he was already calling Saturday’s eagle one of the coolest moments he’s ever had on the golf course.
Marc Leishman said that anything McIlroy does at Portrush, “You can tell it’s him,” likening it to 2019, when Ireland’s Shane Lowry won this same championship at this same course.
Golf’s typical mechanism for measuring attendance is however many folks stand and squeeze and lean in on the rope-line. For J.J. Spaun’s final birdie at Oakmont, they surrounded the hole three- or four-deep. Tiger Woods galleries at Augusta National might swell to eight-deep. But with McIlroy, playing the Open in Northern Ireland, you begin to lose count. The attendance figures won’t arrive until Sunday morning but the expected tally was 46,000. We know what that looks like in a football stadium, but at Portrush, with its wavy topography, sandy peaks and thorny gorse valleys — the fans resemble gravy spilling over a heap of Irish mashed. McIlroy is the spoon mixing it all up.
The hysteria carried all the way to the 17th hole, where McIlroy fanned one into the crowd and an excited fan picked up his ball. By the time McIlroy arrived on the scene, dozens were already suggesting where it should be placed, likely on the most benign spot of trampled turf.
After McIlroy calmly two-putted for 66, his best round of the week, he had risen just eight spots on the leaderboard. He had picked up just one shot on the leader. Of course it felt like something far bigger than that. He was serenaded for the second-to-last time by the horde around the 18th green. Moments later he was behind a microphone looking out at two dozen reporters looking to help tell the world what it all meant.
“I feel like I’ve at least given myself half a chance tomorrow,” McIlroy said with a soft smile.
Whatever happens, he’s already given his people this day.
