Rory McIlroy is among the top players to watch out for in the upcoming 2021 The Open Championship that will be held at Royal St. George's Golf Club in Sandwich, Kent, England, starting on Thursday. He must be so eager to give it a go again after the debacle he had the last time the tournament was staged.

Back in 2019, Rory McIlroy stumbled right out of the gate, scoring 79 in the first round. While he sizzled in the following round with a 65, that was not enough to carry him into the weekend, as he missed the cut and packed his bags with nothing to show for. McIlroy is now promising to show up with a different mindset in hopes of lifting a Claret Jug by the end of the week, via Simon Lovell of Belfast Telegraph.

“There is a lot to that in terms of I didn’t quite approach Portrush the right way in terms of preparing myself to play in that atmosphere in front of those people,” said the world number 11.

“It was almost as if once that first round was out of the way I was unburdened because I was like ‘I can’t win from here’ and then I go out and shoot 65 on the second day.

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Rory McIlroy won his first — and so far his only — The Open Championship in 2014 when he finished 17-under 271. Since then, he has managed to finish inside the top 5 in four of the next five iterations of this major.

The Northern Irishman last saw action at the 2021 US Open back in January where he settled for a T7.