The lad strolled the fairways without a care in the world or so it seemed. Tom McKibbin was in good company, for sure. Darren Clarke, the elder, and Rory McIlroy, the master, completed a threeball that crossed the generation game with stories to tale and yet more to create.
For McKibbin, this 153rd Open on the Dunluce championship links at Royal Portrush is yet another opportunity to progress a career that has seen him, even at 22 years of age, win on the DP World Tour before making the move to LIV Golf where he has settled in well, his fourth place finish in Valderrama last weekend following up a fifth-place finish in Dallas to show some good form at just the right time.
McKibbin is from Belfast and, like McIlroy, learned his craft at Holywood Golf Club, but has also been a member of Royal Portrush for the past 10 years.
Wisely he has tapped into Clarke’s knowledge of the links in the build-up. Clarke was the one who suggested playing some practice rounds in advance of The Open. McKibbin did not need to be asked twice.
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“I work with a coach that coaches Darren as well and we had always been planning to get a little bit of a training camp for a couple of days together. He was at home, I was at home, so it made sense to go come up for a couple days and get out on the course while it was nice and quiet. I got to pick his brains for two days,” McKibbin said.
This is only McKibbin’s second appearance in The Open – he made the cut last year at Royal Troon – and only a fourth appearance in the Majors (he also made the cut at last year’s US Open and this year’s US PGA). He has looked at home in this elite company.
“I played three of them before, and I’ve played nicely. I think if I can just keep getting better at every one of them ... I definitely want to try and finish the highest that I have out of the four. But my game feels good. Hopefully I can continue the nice sort of form that I’ve had over the last couple of events and wherever that is at the end of the week I know that I’ll have given it my best.”
Strange as it may seem, given his fine amateur career, McKibbin – for one reason or another – was never around to play in the North of Ireland Championship on the course. His only competitive appearance was in the British Boys. And when the 2019 Open was staged here, McKibbin only watched on television as he was in Ohio competing in the US Junior Championships.
“Once they announced it was going to come back, it was a big, big goal of mine to get back here and get playing in it,” McKibbin said.
His route to the here and now has been a quick one after turning professional in 2021 at 18. McKibbin’s win in the Porsche European Open in 2023 showcased his talent and he earned his exemption into this Open through his ranking on last season’s DP World Tour order of merit, which enabled him to put it in his schedule from the get-go without the need to look at any other qualifying routes.
“My game feels good. It was very nice at the start of the year, and then towards the middle things just weren’t going my way. I felt like I was playing quite nicely, but I couldn’t really get the score together. The last couple of weeks have been nice. I finished fifth in Dallas and then fourth last week on two very challenging golf courses, so it’s nice to see my game, how it felt like it was playing, translate into some nice scores and post a couple of nice finishes.”
Of the challenge ahead on a course he knows well, McKibbin said: “It’s a very good golf course, very demanding off the tee. It’s quite strategic. There’s bunkers in play no matter what club you decide to take off the tee. The greens are very slopey for links golf, especially with how slow they are [running at 10 on the stimp]. It’s hard to see the breaks. I think very demanding.
“I mean, we played early today, and I’m not sure if this is normally the wind at this time or that time of the morning, because it seemed to be the opposite direction that I’ve normally used to play it in. I’m not sure if that’s just a freak day or that changes sort of morning, day, afternoon, but that made it, the first five or six holes, definitely a little bit trickier. I think it’s going to be a great test. As I said, there’s bunkers everywhere, some patchy rough that can be quite challenging, just off the fairway.”
No doubt there will be a sense of expectation once he heads to the first tee given the welcome that he can expect from the galleries. The support shown in the practice days has given a hint of what is yet to come his way.
What of his own expectations? “It’s something that’s so hard to say. I mean, with the weather and conditions links golf can bring, it’s very hard to set expectations or whatever. You sort of have to just go with the flow really, take what you’re given and go out there and try and handle that the best you can. I just want to have my best result in a Major and go from there.”
