Get your money on me – that was the message from Rory McIlroy ahead of the 146th Open championship getting under way at Royal Birkdale.
The former world number one has struggled since suffering a rib injury at the start of the season and went into this week’s major having missed three cuts in four events.
Unsurprisingly, McIlroy’s poor form has seen his odds for the Open drift to 20-1 with Jordan Spieth, Rickie Fowler, Dustin Johnson Jon Rahm and Sergio Garcia all judged to be more likely Claret Jug winners by the bookmakers.
But McIlroy, who was 10-1 favourite when he won at Hoylake three years ago, is confident he can rediscover his form at the right time.
He said: “Good time to back me, I think.
“20-1? Yeah, I mean, look, if I was a betting company and I saw my form over the past few weeks, you would say 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, 7-1 or 8-1 at Quail Hollow (the venue for next month’s US PGA Championship).
“So as I say, good week to back me.”
McIlroy, who got married earlier this year, hit back at suggestions he doesn’t possess the hunger and desire required to take him back to golf’s top spot.
He said: “I want to win this week.
“I don’t need to win. A second Open Championship isn’t going to change my life.
“But I want to win.
“I’m still as ambitious now as I was starting off my career, if not more so now because I know what I’ve achieved and I know what I can achieve so it only makes you want to do that even more.
“If you were to ask me at Carnoustie 10 years ago at my first Open, you’re going to be sitting in your press conference in ten years’ time at Birkdale, what would you like to have achieved?
“If someone told me, you’re going to be a four-time major winner and you won the Open, you’re one leg away from the career grand slam, you’ve played on three winning Ryder Cup teams, you’ve won the order of merit three times in Europe, you’ve won the FedExCup in the States I’d be, like, yeah, I’ll take that. That’s pretty good.
“But having that success, you only want to do that more.
“And you want to do it again and again and again.
“So I definitely haven’t lost the hunger that I’ve always had.”
