For the first time since losing to Bryson DeChambeau in the U.S. Open final round, Rory McIlroy spoke on Wednesday.
He described the day as “a great day until it wasn’t,” going into depth about the late putts that cost him a chance at his fifth major championship.
In preparation for the British Open at Royal Troon next week, McIlroy, who is defending his Genesis Scottish Open at the Renaissance Club near North Berwick, Scotland, this week, met with media after his pro-am.
Regarding the final round at Pinehurst No. 2, McIlroy remarked, “I did things on that Sunday that I haven’t been able to do in the last couple of years.”
“Acquired command over the golf competition. When I needed to, well, most of the time, I made putts. Handmade birdies. Really got myself in there, you know.
And then, well, it’s evident that you were unfortunate to miss those final two putts, the one on 16 and the one on 18.” With five holes remaining, McIlroy was two strokes ahead of DeChambeau, but he acknowledged that things became tougher on the last few holes.
The shot he regrets missing the most was a 2-and-a-half-foot putt on the sixteenth hole. The 18th hole’s miss, at just under 4 feet, was the consequence of a putt that sloped extremely steeply downward. Knowing that DeChambeau might be having difficulties with him off the tee, McIlroy said that he didn’t want to run the putt far past the hole in case it missed.
“I can vividly remember starting to feel a little uncomfortable waiting for my second putt on 16, and the putt on the last, it was a really tricky putt,” McIlroy stated. Furthermore, I knew exactly where Bryson was off the tee. I knew I had to use a very light touch. I would have struck it harder if it hadn’t mattered who was returning.”It was one of those situations where I had to make sure that, even if the putt missed, it wasn’t going 10 feet by, which it very easily might have, since I wasn’t sure if Bryson would make a par.
“Looking back, I may have been a little too conscious of Bryson’s location and activities, but that was just the layout and style of the golf course. I had to wait for him to hit on my tee shot on 15 before he did, so I let him hit his second shot into 14. After the 14th tee, you’re sort of looking at the 13 green. I was very aware of what he was doing at the same time because of the way the course was structured. I was therefore briefly taken out of my own tiny universe by it.”
McIlroy provided a more thorough explanation of his missed putt on hole 18. Before making his chip shot, McIlroy had a difficult approach that he pounded in front of the green after missing the fairway with a driver off the tee. “I simply left it in the incorrect hole. I made it over the hole,” he declared. The area surrounding the hole, which was cut on top of a little slope, turned out to be somewhat dry and crusty. The chip shot simply escaped the hole by running a short distance beyond it. That putt was quite easy for me to make, and even though it clearly missed low, it still went a good three or four feet past.
“I think I was playing it—I think there were about two or two and a half cups left—a three and a half-foot putt. Considering how easily I was hitting it, there was a lot of swing to it.
As I mentioned earlier, I would have handled the putt differently if it was match play and the outcome of the following one mattered.
“But knowing that Bryson had hit it left off the tee, I just sort of wanted to make sure that if there was still a chance at a playoff, that it was at least going to be that.”
An hour after the tournament ended, McIlroy took off from Pinehurst and traveled home to his home in Florida. He then spent the next three days in New York City, where he had intended to go before the Travelers Championship. However, the four-time major champion pulled out of the highlight event, making his debut at the Scottish Open his first since placing second at the U.S. Open.
McIlroy remarked, “Went to Manhattan, which was nice.” It was pleasant to assimilate into the city a little. It was excellent to spend a few days sort of alone with my thoughts. I had some nice conversations with those that I care about, and when you start to consider not just Sunday at Pinehurst but the entire week as well, there were a few things that I realized I wanted to try to work on during the last few weeks leading up to this and, of course, next week at Troon.
“They were hard but at the same time, as each day went by, it became easier to focus on the positives and then to think about the future instead of what had just happened.” More harder defeats than the U.S. Open loss, according to McIlroy, were his losses at the 2011 Masters, where he scored a final-round 80 after leading by 54 holes, and the 2022 Open at St. Andrews, where he finished without missing a green on the last day but lost to Cam Smith’s 64.