Rory McIlroy's tied-sixth finish at The Open is his seventh top-eight finish in his last eight major appearances; McIlroy is a four-time major winner but remains without a major title since his 2014 PGA Championship success
Wednesday 26 July 2023 17:02, UK
Rory McIlroy continued his remarkable consistency at the majors with a tied-sixth finish at The Open, although signed off another year without an elusive fifth major victory.
McIlroy improved his score each round but still finished seven strokes back at Royal Liverpool, where Brian Harman cruised to a six-shot win and maiden major title, meaning the 34-year-old remains on the same number of majors he has held since 2014.
The former world No 1 said he was "optimistic about the future" and would "keep looking forward" ahead of a busy end to the campaign, where he has the chance to win back-to-back FedExCups and feature for Team Europe in the Ryder Cup, although has nearly nine months to wait until another crack at major victory.
McIlroy's next trip to The Masters will be tenth attempt at completing the career Grand Slam, something Tiger Woods said earlier this year was 'only a matter of time', while Sky Sports' Rob Lee is backing him to eventually turn a string of strong major performances into an elusive win.
"McIlroy on his day is arguably the best player in the world, he's just an exceptional player and he's playing with exceptional consistency," Lee told the Sky Sports Golf podcast. "My view is if you're one of the world's top players and your consistent then majors are going to come along.
"He has just got to let them come along and they will do if he can keep this high standard of play. It's hard to peak on a given week and they will eventually come Rory's way, I have absolutely no doubt about that. I think it would be one of the world's great mysteries that he only won four more majors.
"Rory by nature is a bit of a streaky putter. You're only asking for Rory to make his fair share, you're not asking him to have 450 feet of putts like Brian Harman had last week - he doesn't need that. When he's on, he putts as good as anybody and saves himself from five, six, seven feet.
"When he's not on, he'll finish like he did this week where he was sixth. He hasn't had a good putting week and he has been in the conversation and there's not a lot of players that can do that."
Going into the 151st Open, McIlroy was the man in form after claiming a thrilling victory in the Genesis Scottish Open with stellar displays on the final two holes at the Renaissance Club.
The world No 2 was victorious last time golf's oldest major was held at Royal Liverpool nine years ago and was coming into this week on the back of six top-10 finishes in a row. Then there was his record in majors alone: The most top-10 finishes in majors of any player since the beginning of 2015.
This year had seen his fortunes steadily improve across the first three majors of the year as well. After failing to make the cut at The Masters, the 34-year-old tied for seventh at the PGA Championship and then finished second at the US Open.
On top of that, there was just the hope he could finally bring an end to the nine-year wait for major glory after claiming both the Open and PGA Championship titles in 2014. It wasn't to be.
The huge crowds which followed McIlroy around all week at Royal Liverpool are an indicator of just how much support the Northern Irishman has among the golfing public. Given his success and high profile, it is small wonder he gets so much media attention whenever one of the sport's four biggest tournaments comes around either.
However, two-time Open champion Padraig Harrington questioned whether the scrutiny McIlroy has to contend with around these events is sometimes too much.
"Could be the thing with the majors that we're looking at one person," Harrington said. "There are 156 guys, and everybody is focused on one person. "When you look at one, what's the chance of any one person winning in a given week?
"Whereas if you had a group you could probably pick the winner from the group, and Rory is obviously part of the group. He's just not he one coming out on top." At the same time though, Harrington acknowledged there are plenty of other players who would quite happily swap places and have those expectations on them.
"It would be hard to see anybody who wouldn't want to be in his shoes," Harrington said. "Maybe there's somebody, but it would be an interesting one, wouldn't it? "If you were told you were starting in Rory's shoes next year at the majors, I think you'd be pretty stoked."
McIlroy will take two weeks off before featuring in the FedExCup Playoffs, which begin with the FedEx St Jude Championship at TPC Southwind from August 10-13.
The BMW Championship takes place at Olympia Field Country Club a week later, with McIlroy hoping to be in the top 30 in the FedExCup standings to feature in the season-ending Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club from August 24-27.
Following the FedExCup playoffs, McIlroy will return back to Europe and has confirmed he will play back-to-back DP World Tour events, starting at the Horizon Irish Open from September 7-10 before the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth a week later.
McIlroy will then take a week to prepare for a seventh consecutive Ryder Cup appearance for Team Europe from September 29-October 1, where he will be hoping to help Luke Donald's side regain the trophy at Marco Simone Golf Club.
Watch Rory McIlroy in PGA Tour and DP World Tour action throughout the year live on Sky Sports! McIlroy will next feature in the FedEx St Jude Championship from August 10-13, live on Sky Sports Golf. Stream the PGA Tour and more with NOW.
