2011
Rory’s first major
“And as I said, to get one out of the way early, you can always call yourself a major champion. And hopefully in the not so distant future I’ll be able to call myself a multiple major champion.” — Rory McIlroy after winning his first major title at the 2011 U.S. Open.
Not so distant was right. Over the next three years McIlroy added three more majors to his name, and now just needs the elusive Masters title to claim his grand slam.
Darren Clarke’s epic Open
“I had quite a few pints and quite a few beers and quite a few glasses of red wine, and it all continued until about 30 minutes ago. I did look at my watch before I said that, so it did take a while. But it’s been a very good night.” — Darren Clarke
“I have 294 messages, and the writing is far too small for me to look at them in this state, so I may look at them tomorrow at some stage and figure them out.” — Darren Clarke
“Tyrone, my oldest one, he was very pleased, very proud. He said he was going to tell everybody his dad was Open Champion. My younger boy, Conor, wanted to know what he could spend all the money on. So it was a huge difference between the two. But they were both very happy.” — Darren Clarke
“Actually there’s been nothing (in the Claret Jug) overnight at all. There’s been nothing in there. I’m a little bit of a traditionalist. I love the thought of whatever being in the trophy, but I’m a little bit of 2-iron as opposed to rescue, and I’m that sort of guy. I feel a bit funny about putting stuff in the Claret Jug that shouldn’t be in there, so I’m a little bit more reserved as to what I should do. So there’s nothing in it as yet. That may not be the case as the week goes by, but at the moment there’s been nothing in there.” — Darren Clarke gave some incredible quotes a day after his Open title.