Rory McIlroy takes centre stage at Open as LIV Golf soap opera continues

The ecosystem sits 1up. Try as they may to keep attention on the 150th staging of this great championship, there is no doubt the Open has been clouded by a wider narrative. In the red corner: the PGA and DP World Tours.

In the blue corner: LIV Golf and its Saudi Arabian-backed disruption plan. With golfers from both camps jousting for the Claret Jug while trading public broadsides, it is impossible to ignore the sense of soap opera.

In Rory McIlroy, the establishment has its golden boy. McIlroy may be uncomfortable with such a position – he excels at professional golf, not politics – and the R&A could never possibly be seen to favour an Open contender, but glory for the Northern Irishman in St Andrews would have broader meaning. McIlroy represents all that is good about his sport in the face of a model which sees hundreds of millions of guaranteed dollars thrown at players who need not even worry about 36-hole cuts.

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As McIlroy tapped in for an 18th-hole birdie, five hours and 40 minutes after teeing off on a fiery Old Course, rapturous applause formed the backdrop. McIlroy does not lead the Open heading into day two but his 66 matched the first-round score produced in 2014. He was to win the Open at Hoylake that year. The control McIlroy displayed on day one here was reminiscent of eight years ago. How the galleries lapped it up.

“It never feels easy,” said McIlroy. “There’s little parts of the round where it shows you where you’re at with everything mentally and physically. I came through all those little tests today unscathed and I’m really proud of that. So it might have looked easy, but there’s certain parts of the round that are challenging.”

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