Rory McIlroy still hopes for Open success

Rory McIlroy says he feels he is playing better than his scores suggest a week away from the Open Championship. The Northern Irishman returns home to take part at Royal Portrush next week but goes into the final major of the season off the back of a frustrating Scottish Open at the Renaissance Club.

McIlroy finished the Scottish Open tied for 34th place, with a final round of two-under 69 putting him on 13-under for the tournament. That would be a score good enough to win many events but a lack of wind on the course encouraged good scoring and he finished nine shots off the lead.

Bernd Wiesberger won at the Renaissance Club for his sixth European Tour win after beating Benjamin Hebert in a play-off, both men finishing on 22-under-par. McIlroy said however that despite not being in contention in Scotland, his priority had been to play good golf with next week’s Open in mind.

He said: “All I wanted to do was get a scorecard in my hand. It didn’t matter if the winning score was 20 under or 10 under, I just wanted to play four rounds of competitive golf.

“I’ll at least have a better idea of where my game is at going into next week, instead of having a week or a few weeks off and trying to figure it out once I get there. “Maybe I would have wanted to have been a little bit sharper around the greens and do a little more practice, but overall I feel like my game is in really good shape.”

McIlroy is priced at 9.00 to win the Open next weekend with Brooks Koepka 11.00 and Dustin Johnson 17.00.