PORTRUSH, NORTHERN IRELAND | In the aftermath of Scottie Scheffler’s “what’s it all about” conversation earlier in the week, what transpired Thursday at ruggedly regal Royal Portrush in the first round of the Open Championship felt like more than a fleeting moment.
It felt like nervous stomachs, a season’s worth of Irish weather in one day and the start of something special.
Lest anyone read too much into the thoughts Scheffler shared on Tuesday, he shot 3-under 68 on Thursday and had his familiar bearded game face on.
“This week I’m trying to play good enough to win the golf tournament. I think I’ve made that pretty clear over the course of my career,” Scheffler said.
It’s what Scheffler does better than anyone.
Thursday gave us what the Open Championship is supposed to give us – some weather, some surprises and some sense that the best is yet to come.
Twenty-four hours earlier, the beach at Portrush was busy with visitors and locals soaking up the best of an Irish summer – cloudless skies with the temperature poking into the low 70s – only to be replaced by an early breeze followed by a soaking rain that made life more difficult for anyone who teed off prior to lunchtime.
“It was cold and then it got warm and then it got wet,” said Shane Lowry, who was happy to take his 1-under-par 70 and retire to the couch to watch the afternoon action play out.
It’s not a proper Open Championship if the conditions don’t intrude, flavoring the event like a couple of extra shakes of salt into the soup pot. Not that Royal Portrush needs any help.
In just its second turn as host in this new age of Open Championships, Royal Portrush now sits alongside the Old Course at St. Andrews as the two pre-eminent sites in the Open rota. It asks all the right questions and looks great doing it.
The day began with Pádraig Harrington, perhaps the patron saint of Irish golf, striking the opening tee shot at 6:35 a.m., surrounded by a grandstand full of fans to share the moment. On a calm, clear day, the tee shot at the first is nerve-wracking with out of bounds shouldering in on both sides of the fairway.
On this Thursday morning, Harrington bowed to his nerves, hitting a 3-iron rather than a driver.
“I hyped up the tee shot as much as I could so when I got there today, it wasn’t too bad. I was decently comfortable when I got on the tee. Obviously didn’t try for too much, hit a nice smooth 3-iron down there, held the pose a little bit,” said Harrington, who followed his opening 3-iron with another one that stopped 15 feet from the hole, setting up a storybook birdie start.
Speaking of opening tee shots, native son Rory McIlroy drew a crowd four or five deep the length of the hole to watch him begin, the dark memories of his nightmarish start in 2019 heavy in the breeze.
Lowry, who won here six years ago and whose face adorns the side of a building just down the street from the Portrush clubhouse, had already been there and done that.
“I would put that up there with the first tee at the Ryder Cup. I was fighting with that all morning,” Lowry said.
McIlroy missed the first fairway to the left again but kept it in bounds, prompting a local along the rope line to sigh and say, “At least he can play the next one,” not that a three-putt bogey was the start McIlroy imagined.
Not to worry. McIlroy settled in quickly, flipping the script on what happened to him six years ago here.
Like other things, it takes golf tournaments a while to find their rhythm, which helped explain the randomness of Thursday.
The surnames Olesen, Kaewkanjana and Kawamoto were in the top 10, their unfamiliarity only slightly more surprising than the presence of such oldie goldies as Mickelson and Westwood among them.
There is no shame with not being instantly familiar with Jakob Skov Olesen, whose 4-under-par 67 in the fourth group out set the standard for most of the first day. He is a 26-year-old left-handed Dane who began his American collegiate career at Ranger Community College in Texas before eventually graduating as an All-American from Arkansas (with a stop at Texas Christian in between).
While Olesen may be unfamiliar, both Haotong Li and Matt Fitzpatrick, who also opened with 67, are more accustomed to leaderboards.
Fitzpatrick, to his credit, has finally dug himself from what he called the worst stretch of his professional career earlier this year and explained it in terms everyone can understand.
“I just didn’t feel good or know where it was going,” he said.
Li has quietly stacked a victory and four more top-10 finishes on his DP World Tour résumé this year.
While others did their work well into the long Irish afternoon, Scheffler’s presence near the top on a challenging day gave the leaderboard a familiar glow.
“It’s unbelievable how well he manages his way around the golf course and the scores he shoots. It’s just incredible what he does with the ball,” Lowry said after their round together.
“Even when you look at him and it looks like he’s hitting a bad shot, it doesn’t go in a bad spot.”
As for the reaction to his comments earlier this week, Scheffler remained true to himself.
“I’ve had some players come up to me and say that they feel and think the same things. If anybody has disagreed with me, they haven’t said it to my face yet, so I don’t know what the reaction would be,” he said.
They’re not just listening to Scheffler this week. They’re watching him again.
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