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According to the R&A, work will begin next week on a carefully planned programme of enhancements and restoration ahead of the return of the game's oldest Major. McIlroy has enjoyed considerable success but no wins on the Old Course since he turned professional in 2007. He's racked up six top-ten finishes, including three as runner-up, in ten appearances in the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship. In The Open, he was tied for third in 2010 and third again in 2022, having been forced to miss the 2015 staging due to injury. "I don't know if a golfer's career is not complete if you don't win here, but I think it's the Holy Grail of our sport," McIlroy said in 2022, when he held a share of the 54-hole lead with Viktor Hovland but finished third, two shots behind Australia's Cameron Smith, who shot 64 to his 70. "So not a lot of people are going to get that opportunity to achieve that, but that's what winning an Open at St Andrews is. It's one of the highest achievements that you can have in golf. "There are a lot of great players that have won Opens and maybe not won Opens at St Andrews, so I think it's unfair to say that a golfer's career isn't complete without that. But it's certainly up there with one of the greatest things you can do in our game." The Old Course has become vulnerable to new technology over the past 25 years, especially when the wind fails to blow or the greens are not rock-hard and lightning-fast. To maintain the challenge of a course that has hosted The Open 30 times since 1873, the R&A and the St Andrews Links Trust, which manages the Old Course, are about to undertake a project to refine the strategic challenge for elite players and make it more enjoyable for visitors. Following a review of the course following the 2022 Open, links golf specialists Mackenzie & Ebert will make changes in a small number of areas for future championships while restoring traditional features. The plan, according to chief executive of The R&A Mark Darbon, is to enhance and restore the challenge of the Old Course while retaining a "deep respect for the course's unparalleled history." The course measured 6,933 yards when John Daly won the Open in 1995, but was nearly 350 yards longer when Tiger Woods won his second Open title there in 2005. The most recent changes of note were made before the Open in 2015, which included the addition and removal of bunkers and the regrading of the back left portion of the 11th green to create more options for hole locations. The new changes will include the restoration of a historic playing route left of the Principal's Nose and Deacon Sime bunkers on the 16th, where two new bunkers will add risk on the left-hand side of the extended fairway. However, the changes also include lengthening six holes – the fifth, sixth, seventh, 10th, 11th, and 16th. While the 12th will be shortened slightly, the overall championship yardage of the course will increase by 132 yards to 7,445 yards. New championship tees will be created on the fifth (35 yards), the sixth (17 yards), the seventh (22 yards) and the 10th (29 yards), while tee extensions will stretch the 11th (21 yards) and the 16th (10 yards). Bunkers will be relocated or added to increase the challenge on four holes. The championship tee on the 12th will be realigned to ease spectator movement during the championship, while the Road Hole bunker at the 17th will be "sympathetically restored" to reduce the effect of sand splash build-up over time. While work on upgrading the Old Course irrigation system began on Monday, the restoration project is scheduled to start on 3 November.
