For the first time since the second round of last month's PGA Championship, Rory McIlroy can walk off a golf course and sign for an under-par round of golf.
It wasn't the week McIlroy was hoping for at Oakmont, but the Masters champion closed his U.S. Open with a 3-under 67 to grab a piece of history. He now has 10 rounds of 67 or better at the U.S. Open to rank first all-time, according to Justin Ray of the Twenty First Group. It's a small piece of positivity for the 36-year-old, who has admitted multiple times that he's struggling to find the same motivation after the most momentous achievement of his professional career in April.
However, that should change at the final major of the season, when the Open Championship heads to Royal Portrush, an oceanside layout just 60 miles from his hometown of Holywood, Northern Ireland.
"If I can't get motivated to get up for an Open Championship at home, then I don't know what can motivate me," McIlroy said, according to ASAP Sports. "I just need to get myself in the right frame of mind. I probably haven't been there the last few weeks. But as I said, getting home and having a couple weeks off before that, hopefully feeling refreshed and rejuvenated, will get me in the right place again."
McIlroy will play next week at the Travelers Championship in Hartford before heading to Europe and settling in his new house just outside London. He will then tee it up in the Scottish Open before heading to Portrush.
Many assumed his win at Augusta National would free him up moving forward, but the opposite has occurred, and he looks like a different person both on and off the course than he did over the past 15 years.
"Look, I climbed my Everest in April, and I think after you do something like that, you've got to make your way back down, and you've got to look for another mountain to climb," McIlroy said. "An Open at Portrush is certainly one of those."
This will be the second time McIlroy has played an Open at Royal Portrush, a place where he broke the course record as a 16-year-old with an absurd 61. But the first major played there did not go well for the Ulsterman, as he missed the cut by one stroke after hitting his opening tee shot out of bounds en route to an 8.
However, he made a charge at the cut with a second-round 65, much to the delight of the roaring home crowd.
"I didn't realize how emotional I was going to be at Portrush. I think that was a thing I was unprepared for more than anything else," McIlroy admitted. "I remember I hit a shot into 12 or 13 Friday night, obviously trying to make the cut. I remember the roar I got when the ball hit the green, and I felt like I was about to burst into tears. Just that support and that love from your own people. So I was unprepared for that."
