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By Doug Ferguson

SOUTHPORT, England — Just three years ago, Rory McIlroy was the best player in the world without a trace of argument. He won the final two majors of the year, with a World Golf Championship title in between. He had reason to believe his reign would last as long as he wanted it to.

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Now he’s simply trying to get back into the conversation.

The starkest reminder of the state of his game was not so much missing three cuts in his last four tournaments. It was being told on the eve of the British Open that the bookies listed him at 20-1 to win at Royal Birkdale.

“Good time to back me,” McIlroy said. “I mean, look, if I was a betting company and I saw my form over the past few weeks, yeah, that’s probably a fair enough price. But again, all it takes is one week for those odds to go back.”

He has been through these mini-slumps more than once in the 10 years since he first played the British Open at Carnoustie. McIlroy missed four of five cuts in 2012, including his title defence in the U.S. Open, and ended the summer by winning the PGA Championship to return to No. 1 in the world.