Gavin Cooney

WHEN RORY MCILROY says nobody wants him to win a major more than he does, those of us who stayed up until 3am last night would like a word. 

We mortgaged our desperation for a McIlroy victory against a bleary-eyed Monday morning in work and earned nothing in return other than the chance to learn Wyndham Clark’s name. 

(A friend messaged this morning to say he thought Wyndham Clark was the name of a golf tournament, as if Rory had just been chased down by Charles Schwab.) 

But maybe the journey was about the frenzies we met along the way. This was another late night of fist-gnawing, wall-clawing yearning, and while we are now insisting to ourselves we won’t be so naive as to go all-in on Rory again the next time, we know deep in our hearts that this is just another lie we tell ourselves to get through the day. 

Because this ride is awful and agonising and ridiculous and utterly electrifying.

Nobody else in golf inspires such despairing unanimity, and it’s why there are few athletes as important to their sport than Rory McIlroy is to golf. 

But the drought goes on, and at its end, No Laying Up’s Kevin van Valkenburg heard McIlroy sigh to his manager, “St Andrews all over again.” 

The parallels with the final day of last year’s Open Championship are painfully obvious. He signed for a 70 at the end of both final rounds, and on both occasions McIlroy had the winning game until he stepped onto the greens.

He hit 15 greens in regulation across his final round last night, having hit all 18 at St Andrew’s last year. But the putting woes returned: he infamously two-putted every single green at the Old Course last year, and last night he made one single putt from further than four feet.  Last night also prompted another bout of clinical torment from Stats Genius Justin Ray. 

At the Open last year, Ray told us that McIlroy became the only player to hold the 54-hole lead at a major, hit every green in regulation in the final round and not win.  This week, McIlroy’s 271 is the all-time lowest score from a player in the US Open not to win, and nobody has ever hit as many greens in regulation across a US Open week (59) without winning either.

The obvious difference between LA Country Club and St Andrews was the fact nobody shot the lights out as Cameron Smith did last year, whose searing 64 was enough to singe McIlroy’s careful course husbandry. But the US Open course was not set up for such scoring, and Clark’s ability to finish out deserves enormous credit. That Clark held it together down the stretch of the first major for which he has competed is a stunning achievement. 

He needed the field to wobble, though, and McIlroy was the last hold-out. His challenge ultimately foundered on two mistakes. 

The first was the painful three-putt on the eighth green, where he had a look at eagle and then inexplicably missed a birdie putt. The next was the wedge into 14, which caught the wind and ended up getting plugged into the face of a bunker.

This was less down to bad luck than it was to impatience.  “I feel like I didn’t time the shot perfectly”, said McIlroy. “I hit it when the wind was at its strongest and the ball just got hit a lot by the wind, and obviously it came up short. If I had it back, I think I had the right club and the right shot. I might have just had to wait an extra 15 or 20 seconds to let that little gust settle.”

After his round, McIlroy was asked on Sky whether the problem was his putter, but he demurred slightly, saying he often gave himself too much distance to the hole. This was a problem at St Andrews too, and points to a strategy that’s slightly too conservative, of an emphasis slightly askew. But given the weight of this major drought, can you blame him for tightening up just a tad? How do you affect the insouciance of the mildly interested when you’re battling to achieve everything you’ve ever worked for? 

McIlroy’s missed birdie putt on eight was foretold by Sky’s Wayne Reilly when he said he would be putting across his shadow. But McIlroy is hitting every shot in these majors across his own shadow, a spectre lengthened by the expectations demanded by his talent and demanded by his charisma. If ever a shadow can be said to have weight it is surely this one, burdened as it is by the majors McIlroy hasn’t won and those we feel he should have. 

McIlroy’s final words at his press conference struck a delightful resonance. 

“I would go through 100 Sundays like this to get my hands on another major championship.” 

To which we say, Rory: get in line.