Rory McIlroy’s date with destiny at Royal Portrush

Rory McIlroy with the Claret Jug

It began with a course record 61 as a teenager. Now, Rory McIlroy is back at Royal Portrush, chasing a victory that would complete a story two decades in the making and evoke a second outpouring of emotion in a matter of months.

In 2005, Rory McIlroy stunned Royal Portrush with a bogey-free, course-record 61 – a round that signalled the arrival of a rare talent. Nearly 20 years on, McIlroy returns to the same venue not just as a fan favourite, but as one of the game’s greats, with a Grand Slam to his name and history within reach. This Open Championship represents more than just another Major; it is a homecoming filled with meaning, memories, and the promise of legacy.

Portrush Clubhouse Manager Kenny Gault was working in the halfway house on a mostly windless July afternoon during the second qualifying round of the 2005 North of Ireland Championship when suddenly, the phone rang with a call from the bar.

“They said, ‘You won’t believe what Rory just shot!’” he recalls now with the enthusiasm of a man who is still in disbelief. The answer was the course record 61 that included nine birdies, one eagle, and a closing 28.

What’s more, it was the first bogey-free round McIlroy ever shot; he was 16. “Whenever I think about Royal Portrush and about links golf and my development, I always think about that round of golf,” Rory told TheOpen.com. “There are not many rounds where I remember every shot, but that day I do.”

Once word got around, compatriot Darren Clarke sent a congratulatory text to Rory while preparing for The Open at St Andrews. Another, Graeme McDowell, said that round made him reassess his perception of his younger rival.

“You hear about the next great thing. ‘We’ve got this kid, he’s playing at plus-7 and blah, blah, blah’,” McDowell said. “Then he shot 61 in the first round of qualifying for the North of Ireland and I’m like, ‘Really? OK. Now I have to pay a little more attention to this’.

“That was probably the first time that I realised we had something pretty special on our hands.”

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Two decades on, Rory’s career has delivered on the promise he showed all those years ago. He is now the sixth member of golf’s Grand Slam Club, with five major titles to his name as well as
six Race to Dubai trophies, three FedEx Cups, and 35 wins on the DP World and PGA Tours.

This week, the prodigal son has returned home and will be the favourite among bookmakers, as well as the 275,000+ fans who’ll line the fairways, a huge percentage of them in the grip of McIlroy Mania. How big would a Rory win be at this particular Open? Historically, it would place him level with Sir Nick Faldo on six majors, behind only Harry Vardon as the most successful British golfer of all time. It would also leave only 11 players ahead of him in the Major Championship race.

Victory at Portrush might even see a greater outpouring of emotion than we saw from McIlroy on Sunday night at the Masters. With the Grand Slam already wrapped up, a victory on home soil in the oldest golf tournament in the world would almost certainly mean more to Rory than any other major right now.

He grew up just 60 miles south in Holywood, County Down, and used to tag along to watch his dad, Gerry, play in the North of Ireland Championship at Portrush. He finally got the chance to play there for the first time on his 10th birthday in 1999, which is when he also met his childhood hero, Darren Clarke, for the first time.

“There’s something about that place that’s very special,” McIlroy said. “It always has been special for me because I have those memories of my dad playing there when I was a kid and the thing I always remember is when you were driving there, you’d get to the crest of the hill just before Portrush and all you see is the golf course and the Irish Sea. I’ve had so many great memories there.”

The fact he includes the 2019 Open Championship in that says as much about the support he received as it does his response to a very troubled start to the tournament. The world watched, open-mouthed, as Rory’s opening tee shot flew out of bounds and he registered a quadruple-bogey eight on the 1st. He bookended it with a triple-bogey seven on 18 to sign for an eight-over 79.

Though he was fighting a losing battle to make the cut the next day, he briefly tied the new course record with a second-round 65 before eventual champion Shane Lowry obliterated it with a third-round 63.

To give himself a better chance this week, he’ll need to find a way to handle the pressures of playing in front of the adoring masses while producing the kind of swashbuckling, carefree golf that delivered three wins in the first four months of 2025.

The signs from last week are promising. Though he was pipped to the title at the Scottish Open by Chris Gotterup, he shot four rounds in the 60s and finished in a tie for second alongside Marco Penge without having his best stuff.

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“It’s been a great week,” he told reporters afterwards. “I’m really happy with where my game is; the way I played over the weekend; the shots that I hit, how I controlled my ball flight. It has been a great week. Missing the trophy, that’s about it.”

Going one better in his homeland would be especially fitting, having already laid one ghost to rest this year. There won’t be a dry eye in the whole of Portrush if he manages it for a second time.