Reliving 16-year-old Rory McIlroy's course record 61 at Royal Portrush

USA Today

2 days ago

At the 2018 Memorial Tournament, Rory McIlroy had gone out early on Saturday and posted a 64. With nothing better to do, he was relaxing in a comfy couch in the players' locker room when I told him I was fresh off a golf trip to play Northern Ireland's gems and asked him how he possibly shot 61 at Royal Portrush at age 16 in the stroke-play qualifying for the North of Ireland Championship.
His eyes lit up, he smiled broadly and invited me to sit down beside him. Who doesn't like reliving one of his best rounds, right?
'I remember every shot from that round like it was yesterday,' he said. 'It was the first time I ever played 18 holes without a bogey.'
McIlroy blitzed Royal Portrush's Dunluce Links, which dates to 1888, in a course-record 11-under 61. In many ways, it is that round on July 12, 2005, which confirmed all the hype about McIlroy was legit.
As if we needed any further confirmation that Rory's one of us, he remembered a birdie that got away – right at the first – but he missed little thereafter. Driver and 6-iron led to a two-putt birdie at the second, and he tacked on birdies at Nos. 6 and 9, where he wedged into the par-5 ninth, to turn in 33.
He eagled the par-5 10th and made a deuce at the par-3 11th to go to 6 under, and that's when he started thinking about breaking the course record of 64. He kept the pedal down, getting to 9 under par through 16 holes. He knew if he parred in, he'd break the course record.
Special stuff and it would get even more special with another birdie at 17. Double digits under par! 'I thought, 'OK, just don't screw this up at the last. You can even bogey and still shoot the course record.'' McIlroy said.
He launched a perfect drive at 18 and lofted an 8-iron to the heart of the green. All he said he was trying to do was two-putt from about 20 feet. He rolled it in for good measure to finish with five straight birdies and shatter the record by three.
'That was a special day,' he said in the understatement of the day.
'A member of the golf club phoned me and told me, and I thought it was a joke,' Michael Bannon, McIlroy's longtime instructor, told TheOpen.com ahead of the 2019 Open. 'No one can shoot 61 around Royal Portrush.'
'I actually thought he didn't play the last two holes,' said Maureen Madill, a longtime club member and former tour professional turned broadcaster. 'I asked, 'Did he play the whole way around? 17 and 18?' I thought, That's extraordinary.'
Indeed, it was.
Best round ever, I asked?
'It's up there. Definitely up there,' McIlroy said before adding the most memorable moment of our conversation. 'It's the first time I've ever felt in the zone. Ever since, when I get 7-, 8-, 9-under in a round, I've never been afraid to push it further.'
With the career Grand Slam complete following his dramatic victory at the Masters in April, McIlroy has struggled from a lack of focus. And there's some scar tissue from an opening-round 79 at the 2019 Open at Portrush, which dug McIlroy such a big hole that even a 65 the next day wasn't enough to make the 36-hole cut. Perhaps a chance to make some more history and win a major on home soil and prove that Portrush, which underwent a renovation ahead of the previous Open there, hasn't been Rory-proofed.
'Look, 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.