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Rory McIlroy has been and will continue to be the story of the 2025 Open Championship -- at least until the final putt drops Sunday. The Northern Ireland native came into the week determined to right the wrongs from 2019 when he missed the cut in agonizing fashion at Royal Portrush, and through 36 holes, he has acquitted himself to that end.

McIlroy sits 3 under through the first two rounds, backing up his opening 70 with a 2-under 69 on Friday to get into the top 20 going into the weekend. Despite playing solid golf to this point, he does sit five back of the lead. Given his goal is to contend -- not just make the cut -- at the oldest golf championship in his home country, he has plenty of work to do starting Saturday with Moving Day.

This after being unable to truly capitalize Friday at Royal Portrush during a morning that saw improved scoring conditions.

The No. 2 player in the world got off to a strong start with a birdie on the first, no small feat on the hole with out of bounds on both sides that produced a quadruple bogey on his first hole of 2019 and a bogey on his first try in 2025.

However, a pair of bogeys on the front stalled McIlroy's progress and kept him treading water at the turn. A quality 33 on the back nine kept a level of momentum moving forward, bringing the Ulsterman to 3 under for the championship. He was in better control of his ball off the tee after a wild first round driving it but could not cash in when faced with birdie chances at the same rate as others in the second round.

Given the context of everything McIlroy dealt with six years ago -- and his struggles since the Masters -- his performance the first two days of The Open has been a relative success. Getting to the weekend in contention was the most important job he had for Thursday and Friday, but as mentioned, he didn't come to Royal Portrush just hoping to play four days of golf. 

Now that McIlroy has punched his ticket to the weekend, he can officially move on from the heartbreak of 2019 and focus on the task at hand: trying to complete the last true bucket list item of his career -- winning an Open Championship in Northern Ireland. This may be his last great chance as we don't know what The Open rota will look like in the future, but it's unlikely the Claret Jug will be up for grabs again at Royal Portrush until McIlroy is well into his 40s.

With that goal in mind, his Friday performance left something to be desired. He was solid and steady, but if he's going to lift the Claret Jug in front of his adoring nation, he's going to need to be more than that. By not taking advantage of quality scoring conditions in the second round that yielded numerous scores of 67 or better -- most notably a 65 from leader Brian Harman -- McIlroy finds himself with yet another uphill battle to hoist a major title. 

It's fitting that's the case at the tournament he called his next mountain to climb after completing the career grand slam, and perhaps that's the best place for him to be entering the weekend.

McIlroy regularly puts extremely pressure on himself when trying to maintain a lead -- such as the one he held during the 2022 Open at St. Andrews, when he couldn't get out of first gear in the final round. Even at this year's Masters, he was at his best when he was chasing -- needing to erase a 7-shot deficit after Thursday -- and not when he was trying to protect a lead on Sunday. 

As the weekend comes into focus at Royal Portrush, McIlroy gets to be the hunter at a course he loves dearly rather than the hunted. The roars that ripped through the thick Northern Ireland air on Thursday and Friday for every McIlroy birdie will sound like a whispering wind compared to the sound he'll produce if he can make a charge at Champion Golfer of the Year across the final 36 holes.