Rory McIlroy has organized the US Open for 8 years. Will it work?

SOUTHAMPTON, NY — It seems impossible to attend the US Open without thinking about the last time Shinnecock Hills hosted one, in 2018. Broadcast shows its images. The USGA has been pushing not to fail another test. Even the best players in the world have pictures of that week painted on the walls of their brains, now almost a decade later.

“[Today] it was a day to keep yourself in the tournament and not take yourself out of it,” said Rory McIlroy, “which is exactly what I did eight years ago here.”

Shinnecock is a small a place and more a the idea McIlroy's 69 shots on Thursday. Shinnecock was a US Open finalist that put him in the closet. The ultimate test of a sensible, tough golfer, the US Open can handle it.

In 2018, McIlroy not only missed the cut, he failed to break 80 in the first round, and was bombed before he even made the turn. He ended that year writing on a private jet, writing to himself a promise that he would build his game to “pass the toughest tests we have.”

That meant saying goodbye to the old Rory – high-pitched, high-pitched. Who played so hard that his game teetered on the edge at times, occasionally sliding off the sidelines. The one who showed up at the 2018 Travelers Championship, one week after Shinnecock's last Open, and suddenly felt free again. He shot a 64 in that first round at Hartford and finished the week tied for 12th, but he had to hate his part.

“I remember feeling comfortable in my tee shot at TPC River Highlands,” McIlroy said, “and thinking to myself, I have this back. I should be in my comfort zone in Shinnecock not here.“

It sounds amazing but somehow, yes, McIlroy has been building this week for eight years. And build toward next year's US Open at Pebble Beach, too. He has become a top-tier putter, which was a bugaboo at the time. He's added some shots to his bag — like drivers that drop, drop or clip, irons that slice through the air — not those that bend freely from right to left. On Thursday, amid a sweltering morning on a firm track, it was a few of those shots that led to bogeys on his final two holes, pulling him back from three under and a solitary lead. But you know one thing: those pictures are the right pictures. They worked at the last two Masters tournaments. They have sold him six US Open top 10s in the last seven years.

“It doesn't look like I've rebuilt my game,” McIlroy said, “but it feels like the way I look at the game and the amount I put into certain shots and certain skills in the game.”

All of the aforementioned information — a newspaper 30,000 feet above the Middle East, quotes about Travelers, the idea of ​​flying a gun he once thought was silly — all came out in one fluid response during McIlroy's post-round press conference Thursday. You can tell that you have told that story before. You can say that it is his truth. And if you've been watching McIlroy closely over the past 14 months, you can connect the dots between it and his biggest ambitions.

As a form of internal motivation, McIlroy followed his Grand Slam career by defining, specifically, the tournaments he wanted to win. He wants an Olympic medal (and will have to wait patiently for another two years). He wants to win the Open Championship in St. Andrews (possible next summer). And he wants better stamps in his US Open passport.

“Maybe the US Open on one of these, like the old golf courses,” he told the BBC in January. “Whether it's Shinnecock this year, Winged Foot, Pebble, Merion.”

If that sounds like McIlroy writing a script, it would make sense. More than any other professional, his career has followed the arc of a game of three acts – the first four majors, the missing decade, and this third act of ongoing conflict. That will make Shinnecock in 2018 some kind of badly needed break. It kind of makes the most sense when the show crescendoes at the end.