British Open 2017: Rory McIlroy comes to Birkdale trying to avoid another missed cut

If Rory McIlroy gets off to a poor start in Thursday’s opening round of the British Open, he could well be on his way to a third straight worldwide missed cut and the fourth in his last five starts, says Colin Montgomerie.

Limping into the third major on the men’s calendar after early exits from the U.S. Open in June and the Irish and Scottish Opens earlier this month, McIlroy dusted off his oft-repeated mantra that his game was close to regaining its winning form.

“I feel like it’s all coming together and I’m just waiting for that round or that moment of that week where it sort of clicks and I’ll be off and running,” McIlroy, who has played just 10 worldwide events this year because of a nagging rib injury, said on Wednesday from Royal Birkdale. “I feel like my game, the pieces are all there; it’s just about trying to fit them together.”

Monty was not all that convinced.

“He knows that he’s got to be under-par for the first six holes [at Royal Birkdale],” Montgomerie said on Golf Channel following what he termed “not the most confident of press conferences” from McIlroy. “If he’s under-par on that seventh tee, I think he will have forgotten the U.S. Open, the Irish Open, the Scottish Open, and get right back into this Open Championship.”

Should McIlroy find himself at 1- or 2-over after six, it won’t be too soon for self-doubt to begin unsettling the 28-year-old Ulsterman.

“He’ll be thinking about the cut,” predicted Montgomerie. “He’ll be thinking about the Irish Open, Scottish Open, ‘oh no, not again, oh my goodness,’ and then start going for pins that you shouldn’t be going for and you know how it can just escalate in a downward spiral.

“It’s very important for Rory tomorrow to get off to a good start for his own psyche,” Montgomerie concluded.

For sure, McIlroy has learned from the best.

When the winner of four majors, who sustained a fractured rib in January, is limited to just 10 worldwide events this year, misses three of four cuts, and claims that he is “close” to regaining the form that won him four major titles, it’s difficult not to hear echoes of Tiger Woods in his words.

McIlroy may not be “delusional,” as Paul Azinger described Woods’ reaction to his game after the 14-time major champion posted a 4-over 76 in the opening round of the 2015 British Open. But the winner of the 2014 Open Championship, who told Golfweek on the eve of an MC at the Irish Open that he learned to be “ruthless” from his boyhood hero, conceded recently that observers may consider his constant claim that his game is rounding into shape to be somewhat far-fetched.

“It’s hard to sit up here and stand in front of a camera every single time and say to you guys, ‘It’s close,’ because I sound a bit like a broken record after a few weeks,’’ McIlroy told reporters ahead of an early exit from Scotland. “But really, it’s not far away. I’m positive about it. I’m excited about my game. I feel like I’m doing a lot of good things.”

McIlroy embellished on that sentiment on the eve of a late afternoon tee time at Royal Birkdale with Dustin Johnson and Charl Schwartzel, and conceded that his play of late did little to bolster his self-esteem.

“Because I haven’t played that much, the only thing I can really do is take some sort of confidence from what I’m seeing in practice,” he said. “Sometimes that doesn’t quite translate to what happens on the course and that’s sort of been the case for the last few months, but obviously it’s been hard to get any sort of momentum with an injury and not being able to practice as much as you like.”

Despite all that — not to mention his switch from Nike to TaylorMade gear, his ongoing putting woes, or the likelihood that he has been pressing to regain his form — McIlroy reiterated his belief that “it’s all coming together.”

McIlroy also noted that, while he will have to “manage” the pain from the stress fracture in his rib for the rest of the season, he is able to practice, though not at full throttle.

“I’ve hit a lot of balls over the last few days and put in a good bit of work,” he said. “At the end of the day it sometimes feels a little stiff but when I wake up the next morning it’s fine.”

Even with his recent form, McIlroy was able to banter about his chances this week. With Jordan Spieth and DJ vying for top spot as the oddsmakers’ favorite to lift the Claret Jug come Sunday, he joked about his lowly, but well-earned, position, given how he has performed of late.

“Good time to back me, right? Twenty to one?” he said with a laugh. “If I was a betting company and I saw my form over the past few weeks, you would say, ‘yeah, that’s probably a fair enough price.’ But, again, all it takes is one week for those odds to go back to, I don’t know, 7 to 1, 8 to 1 [at next month’s PGA Championship].”

On a more serious note, McIlroy rued losing his lofty status but tried to convince the gathered scribes, if not himself, that he would soon hit pay dirt.

“I wish I was here being the No. 1 player in the world and won a couple more majors but I haven’t and I’m at a place where I’m trying to figure out how I get back to that position where I was this time two-and-a-half, three years ago,” he said.

“But I’m working at it,” McIlroy promised. “I’m trying too get back there, I’m trying to do everything I can and hopefully the start of that crest of a wave happens this week.”