If the Open Championship had been decided by which golfer wielded his driver the best, then Rory McIlroy could have laid claim to his seventh career major Sunday at Royal Birkdale Golf Club.
The Northern Ireland native led The Open in strokes gained off the tee with 7.98 and in driving distance at 339.3 yards.
Alas, the rest of his game did not live up to his TaylorMade Qi4D.
McIlroy posted a 1-over-par 71 in the final round to finish at 1-under 279 — nine shots behind champion Ryan Fox of New Zealand.
“I just sort of stuck in neutral for most of the week,” McIlroy said after his three-birdie, four-bogey round. “Obviously shot a good one on Friday to get myself in for the weekend and back in it. Yeah, even par over the weekend is not going to get it done. Yeah, I just felt like any time I got a little bit of momentum out there, I seemed to make a bogey.”
McIlroy said he went back to a driver setup that he was more comfortable playing, one with a little more heft.
“I went into it at — I think it was Memorial, maybe,” he said. “I started to use the heavier driver again. Then I think I led — might have led the field in driving in Shinnecock (at the U.S. Open). Certainly led it last week in Scotland, and I’m up there again this week.
“That’s a huge positive going forward, especially accuracy-wise. The length is the length, and I’m always going to have that, but just getting the ball in play a little bit more with the driver was a struggle at the start of the year, and I figured that out. It’s just trying to get the rest of the game to match up to it.”
Before McIlroy puts in extensive work to get the rest of his game in shape, he’s going on holiday with his wife and daughter.
Then he’ll split his time between pursuing the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup and the DP World Tour’s riches and titles. He’s also looking forward to the Irish Open in mid-September.
“I’ve really enjoyed my stretches of golf in Europe and heading into — like going back to India again, the Middle East, Australia — really enjoyed that part of the year last year, and looking forward to that again, for sure,” McIlroy said.
As for his week at Royal Birkdale, he’ll file away the knowledge that the course changed significantly from when he shared fourth at The Open in 2017.
“I feel like with a lot of the changes they made, the greens were raised up and a lot of the fall-offs and stuff, it didn’t play like a traditional links course,” McIlroy said. “I didn’t feel like you could run the ball up to a lot of greens. There was a lot of stuff where you still had to fly the ball on.
“I’m not saying that’s the reason I didn’t play well this week, just it wasn’t — it didn’t feel like it was sort of your typical links test or certainly wasn’t the links test that Birkdale presented in 2017.”
