The Open Championship returns to Royal Portrush next month, six years after Shane Lowry clinched his first major title at the venue.
It will be the third time that The Open Championship has been held at Royal Portrush. Shane Lowry ended up winning by six in Northern Ireland, with Tommy Fleetwood ending up in second place.
Of course, one of the most memorable performances that week came from Rory McIlroy. It seemed to be the perfect stage for McIlroy to end his five-year wait for a fifth major. Unfortunately, he ended up getting off to a nightmare start.
McIlroy made a quadruple bogey eight on the first hole, and ended up posting a 79 on Thursday. A scintillating 65 in the second round was not enough to see him make the cut.
The piece of history the 2019 Open Championship holds in the careers of Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson
McIlroy was far from the only big name to miss the cut at Royal Portrush.
Tiger Woods had won The Masters earlier in the year to secure his 15th major title. But he was only able to beat McIlroy’s opening round score by one shot on Thursday in Northern Ireland.
A 70 on Friday meant that the three-time winner of the Claret Jug had the weekend off.
Meanwhile, it was even worse for Phil Mickelson who shot 76 and 74 to leave himself at eight over par. Mickelson had managed to put his initial struggles in The Open Championship behind him to win in 2013 at Muirfield. But his 2019 performance marked the start of a run of four missed cuts in five Open appearances.
It is not the piece of history that either man will have wanted, but the 2019 Open Championship did mark a notable moment in the careers of Woods and Mickelson as it was the first time that they had missed the cut at the same major championship.
They had previously played 83 majors together, with Mickelson only missing the 2009 Open Championship and the 2017 US Open between 1995 and 2019.
What Tiger Woods said about the fans at Royal Portrush after missing the cut at The Open
Woods has always had a special relationship with The Open Championship. Arguably the greatest performance of the Tiger Slam came at St Andrews in 2000, while Woods was clearly emotional walking up the 18th hole at the Old Course in 2022 – seemingly sensing that it may be the final time he made his way down the iconic fairway in The Open Championship.
And it seems that Portrush made a really positive impression on Woods as he was asked about the fans that week after he had missed the cut.
“Oh my god, they were incredible,” he said. “They were so nice and so respectful. The kids were respectful. But that’s not always the case when we travel around the world. We hear some rude comments from the kids. I think the adults kind of teach them that.
“But here they were so respectful. We couldn’t have played in front of a better fan base than here at Portrush.”
Woods is not going to be involved next month after undergoing Achilles surgery earlier in the year, but Mickelson will get another chance to take on Portrush.
He does, however, go into The Open off the back of three missed cuts in the majors in 2025.
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