Let's Focus on The Golf at This Year's Open

By: Derek Clements | Mon 17 Jul 2023

Golfshake's Derek Clements Looks Ahead to The 151st Open in His New View From The Fairway

THE world’s greatest golf tournament takes place at Royal Liverpool this week and, for once, the world’s media should be focused on what happens within the ropes.

Rory McIlroy cancelled his pre-tournament press conference at the US Open because he did not want to be grilled about the proposed merger between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.

The whole subject of LIV Golf has been an unwelcome distraction for McIlroy, who has effectively been a mouthpiece for the PGA Tour. And it has to be said that his decision to concentrate only on his golf paid off at the US Open, where he was pipped to the title by a single shot.

At the Scottish Open, the likes of Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele and McIlroy did speak once again about the confusion surrounding the merger but nothing new was said. They revealed that PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan had lost their respect. We already knew that. They revealed that they had no clue how the merger was going to work. We knew that too.

And McIlroy said he would rather quit the sport than play for LIV.

So, hopefully, it will not be a distraction again this week. There is nothing new to say. There are no fresh questions to be asked.

The Open

(Image Credit: Kevin Diss Photography)

And speaking of distractions, it is to be hoped that we don’t have to witness Just Stop Oil protesters running on to the course and sprinkling orange paint dust on the perfect putting surfaces.

The R&A insist that there will be robust security measures in place at Royal Liverpool but the organisers of the Grand National, World Snooker Championship, Wimbledon and The Ashes cricket all said the same thing. And look what happened there.

More than 260,000 people will be flooding into the course. The R&A says it has the capacity to search every single bag. Let’s hope they are right.

There will be an entirely different noise surrounding McIlroy this week because Royal Liverpool was where he won The Open in 2014 and then followed it by adding a second US PGA title.

I wonder how many times McIlroy is going to be asked about that 2014 success?

There is no doubt that returning to a course where you have only positive memories can only be a good thing. It will be fascinating to see how McIlroy copes with the added pressure that brings.

He has developed a worrying habit of getting himself into winning positions in majors without being able to finish the job. Remember the 150th Open at St Andrews last year? He played some beautiful golf but couldn’t buy a putt when it really mattered. And the same thing happened at the US Open, when Wyndham Clark beat him by a shot.

But his spectacular finish on Sunday to win the Scottish Open should be a huge confidence boost.

The truth is that no matter how well you play this game, it is impossible to simply flick a switch and produce your very best golf at will. McIlroy knows this better than most, and you can be certain that the last thing on earth he wants is yet another top-five finish in a major. Only a win will do.

It is hard to credit that a golfer who possesses so much natural talent has still only won four majors.

He has been working hard to get his preparation right and there is a sense that the stars have aligned for McIlroy.

If it remains calm, McIlroy may well take a leaf from Tiger Woods’ book. Back in 2006 the 15-time major champion produced a golfing masterclass, hitting his driver just once in 72 holes. He took all the trouble out of play by hitting irons from the tee and he left a world-class field trailing in his slipstream.

Of course everybody wants to see McIlroy smash 350-yard drives. But he will surely apply some common sense and proper course management. It will be fascinating to see how the week and the tournament unfolds.