British Open 2019: 5 bold predictions for The Open Championship

1. Rory McIlroy lives up to expectations, wins at Royal Portrush

With the British Open heading to Royal Portrush and Northern Ireland, a large portion of the discussion has been about Rory McIlroy playing in his home country. He enters the final major championship of 2019 as the betting favorite to win and for good reason. He’s a guy that has been playing exceptionally well this season and is familiar with this course, actually setting the course record there as a 16-year old.

However, the issue with all of this is the simple fact that McIlroy has so much pressure to live up to. All eyes are on him for this tournament and every move that he makes is going to be heavily scrutinized. Thus, it might seem like it’s going to be exceptionally difficult for him to actually be what everyone expects him to be at Royal Portrush.

He’s going to, though. When you look at everything about McIlroy’s game coming into The Open Championship, it paints the picture of a golfer primed to win his fifth major. As noted by Kyle Porter of CBS, the Northern Irishman is having an all-time great strokes-gained season, bested only in history by three Tiger Woods seasons.

Meanwhile, McIlroy has been great in majors this year, tying for 21st at The Masters, tying for eighth at the PGA Championship and tying for ninth at the U.S. Open. And if that weren’t enough, his last four finishes at The Open have been a win in 2014 (sat out the next year due to injury), tied-fifth in 2016, tied-fourth in 2017 and tied-second last year.

The hype, the spotlight and the moment won’t be too much this week for McIlroy. He steps up in this massive moment and gets the job done on his home turf.