There are all types of pressure in sports. Type that comes from great expectations. The kind that comes from rare opportunities and from the Grand Dreams. Then there is the external type, the type of mutilation that comes from the hopes and dreams and desires of others. Maybe you know some of them. Maybe you don’t.
Rory Mcilroy is faced with both types of pressure. He invaded the former in Augusta National in April. like My colleague James Colgan notedHe was printed under the latter during the 2019 open championship in front of his home crowd in northern Ireland. It is a pressure – to perform for a region or country – that has made individuals and countless teams want.
“As far as I came here at the beginning of the week saying I wanted to do it for me, you know, by the end of the round there I was doing it just as much for them as I was for me,” Mcilroy said after his cut line charges came short in the 2019 open championship in Royal Portrush. “I wanted to be here for the weekend. With selfishness, I wanted to feel that support for two more days. To play in front of those crowds today and to feel that moment and really dig, it will be a difficult to overcome.”
It is a pressure that can be overcome because you want not only for yourself, but you feel how much it would say for the millions you have never met. It is a pressure that British athletes know well.
In Wimbledon 2012 final, Andy Murray became overcome with emotion After being lost to Roger Federer. Murray, who was trying to become the first male tennis from the United Kingdom to win a Grand Slam title since 1936, split into his post -match speech, with the importance of his close appearance still weighing it. Following Federer and thanking his family and team, Murray addressed Wimbledon’s crowd that he had tried to want him in history for two weeks.
“Everyone always talks about the pressure of playing in Wimbeldon,” Murray said through tears. “How difficult it is. But it’s not the people who watch. They make it much easier to play. The support has been extraordinary.”
When Murray finally penetrated a few months later in the US Open 2012, he opened the pressure of trying to win for everyone in the United Kingdom and how he felt it at the next moment of his career so far.
“You try not to think too much about it when you’re playing,” Murray said after breaking the drought. “But as I said, when I served the match, it’s something that, you know, I realized how important that moment was, and you know, about British tennis or British sport.”
Wayne Rooney bearing the weight of the World Cup hopes in England for nearly two decades. As the biggest football star in England, Rooney knew that if the three lions brought their first World Cup title since 1966 it would fall on its shoulders.
“I would get into the tournament thinking if England would win this tournament because I’ve won them,” Rooney saidDocumentary us for his career.
“That was a lot of pressure on me to deal with,” Rooney said. “I tried to hide it a lot throughout the years and tried to remove that pressure from my teammates, almost not to show that, but deep down, this is what was always in my head.” I was always thinking, so I think a lot of time you see mistakes in the field or as a red card, whatever, bad performance, it’s probably from me just keeping everything in and trying to do a lot of time. “
This brings us to Matt Fitzpatrick, who, after opening 2025 Open Championship in Royal Portrush With rounds 67 and 66, a back of the world of world No.1 Scottie Scheffler will enter the weekend, seeking to become the first Englishman to win the open championship since Nick Faldo in 1992.
Fitzpatrick is already a big champion. He is filled by a revitalizing game And it plans to enter Kazan this weekend in northern Ireland feeling free. The pressure to win for your country, especially when you know how much it would say to anyone with whom shares a common connection can be drowned. But the pressure, he claims, is with the other son.
“I wouldn’t say I would necessarily feel so much pressure,” Fitzpatrick said on Friday after the second round. “The pressure, (Scheffler) will have the reception to come out and dominate. He is an extraordinary player. He is world No. 1, and we are seeing things similar to tiger. I think the pressure is for him to win the golf tournament. For me I hope I will have more support at home than he is, but it is an exciting position for me to be this year.”
Since Faldo raised the south Claret in 1992, a number of talented English players have run a run to the Major that is closest to their heart. Lee Westwood, Justin Rose, Ian Poulter, Paul Casey and Tommy Fleetwood have all come short. Faldo also had some losses almost after his victory in 1992.
Thirty -three years have passed since an English golf player has been the champion golf player of the year.
Fitzpatrick will keep that weight on the weekend along the Northern Ireland coast, even if he doesn’t feel it yet.
“No, not in the small,” Fitzpatrick said when asked if he feels added weight to prove and disrupt the drought of England.
We have 36 holes to find out if it’s true.
;)
Seduce
Golfit.com editor
Josh Schrock is a writer and reporter for Golf.com. Before entering Golf, Josh was the interior of Chicago Bears for the NBC Sports Chicago. He previously covered 49ers and Warriors for NBC Sports Bay Area. A native Oregonian and Uo alum, seduces and spends his free time walking with his wife and dog, thinking about how the ducks will break his heart again, and trying to become half a professor into pieces. A true romantic for golf, Josh will never stop trying to break 90 and will never lose the confidence that Rory Mcilroy’s main drought will end (updated: he did it). Josh Schrock can be reached in Josho.schrock@golf.com.