Rory McIlroy will head into The Open Championship next week with a real point to prove, on two fronts.
Firstly, McIlroy will be desperate to prove his critics wrong after a really underwhelming stretch of form since his win at The Masters in April.
And secondly, the 35-year-old will be keen to make amends for his performance at Royal Portrush the last time The Open was held there in 2019, when he missed the cut.
McIlroy has spoken openly about how disappointed he was to miss the cut at The Open way back in 2019.
The Northern Irishman has really struggled since he completed the career Grand Slam at The Masters three months ago.
McIlroy has admitted himself that he has lacked the motivation needed to win big events after what he described as having climbed his very own Mount Everest.
Maybe a return to his homeland this year for the 153rd Open Championship is exactly what he needs to spark his 2025 season back into life.
Paul McGinley says Rory McIlroy has added a new shot to his game
McIlroy is the complete player now.
Sure, his wedge play still lets him down at times, but on the whole his game inside 150 yards is like night and day from what it was years ago.
McGinley said: “You have to remember that Rory and Shane went to America relatively early in their careers compared to us. They became Americanised in how they played the game. They had to adjust to the American style of the game, particularly Rory.
“When he went to America with all this power he had, he had such an advantage over everybody else and he used it as much as he could.
“At that stage technology had moved so it was about high launch, low spin. That is great when you are in America with benign weather conditions but that does not necessarily work on a links golf course.
“That’s something he has added to his game in the last few years. I love to see him hit that low 40 foot high, rather than 120 foot high, driven drive. A fairway finder. A stinger as Tiger used to call it.
“That is something that he has added to his armoury in the last few years, he did not have it or need it when he went over to America first.
“If you look at him now there has certainly been a big elevation in his skill set in the last 12 months, it’s broadened. It’s not that he couldn’t play the shots, but he’s seeing them now and he’s being pushed in that direction to play them, particularly with the wedges.
“If you look at the wedges now they go in a lot lower than they did two or three years ago. He hits these low three quarter wedges in now and controls them. He never performed well at Pebble Beach before and he won there this year. Pebble Beach has a lot of greens which usually slope hard back to front, they are quick at the AT&T and if you’re not controlling your spin there you end up with 30 feet of back spin.
“So for Rory to win around there, even though you don’t really see it on TV. You know that he had control of the spin going into those very tiny greens with a lot of slope on them.“
Paul McGinley predicts how Rory McIlroy will perform at The Open
McGinley outlined how he expects big things from McIlroy during the remaining two or three months of the season.
He said: “I think there was a reaction. A lot of us thought it was going to be a really positive reaction and the gates were going to open after his win in Augusta. The opposite has happened. He has talked himself about being somewhat flat and being somewhat low energy.
“I think there is just a period of adjustment and we saw flashes of him a couple of weeks ago when he played well over in Connecticut. He had the best round of the day in the last round of the US Open. Rory has always been up and down in his career. People forget that. It hasn’t been a straight line his career, he has had a number of downs, and what he’s very good at is bouncing back.
“So I think there is a period of adjustment going in to the colossal achievement he had of completing the grand slam and the build up of 11 years of having not won a major and not completing the Grand Slam.
There is a lot of scar tissue there that was put to bed with his win and I just think there is a period of adjustment going on.
“I think he will be energised this week. It will be interesting to see how he plays in Scotland leading into it, he usually plays well up there. I would say he will be ready for Portrush. He has two massive things between now and the end of the season that mean a lot to him, which will energise him. One is The Open Championship at Portrush where he has unfinished business after what happened last time.
“And the second one is one of the big achievements he has talked about in the game before he won The Masters was to complete the Grand Slam, win another major and win an away Ryder Cup, so he is very energised and communicative with Luke and he is very up for that as well.
“He is always at his best when he is out there with something to prove. Some kind of an edge and has pointy elbows out, that’s when he’s at his best.“
McIlroy is definitely good enough to win The Open next week.
However, whether the mental aspect of his game is where it needs to be remains to be seen.
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