After three holes of his final round, having botched yet another wedge, Rory McIlroy snapped. Or to put it in his words: ‘Just go home Rory, f****** hell.’
To be fair, he might have saved himself some of the stress had he decided to fire up the jet the previous evening, when the real unravelling of his US Open challenge occurred.
There is no shame in taking a beating at Shinnecock Hills when the wind is up, but when McIlroy reviews this week he will immediately zero in on Saturday’s back nine, when he plummeted from a share of fourth on two under to a place among the nowhere men on three over.
That capitulation rendered his fourth loop largely meaningless and it showed in his compilation of a closing 73, taking his overall tally to six over and a finish outside the top 30. Had he noticed Harry Maguire in the gallery, they might have shared a few tales on the plight of being a peripheral figure at American sporting events.
For McIlroy, the analysis from this trip will be a mixed bag. His driving has shown a drastic improvement across the week, which bodes well for the Open at Birkdale next month, but where one issue has been fixed another has arisen. His wedge game has often let him down on Long Island, which was the cause of his outburst on the third, when he fatted his approach from 160 yards on a fairway lie and rolled from the green into the sand.
That would be one bogey among six in his final round, including a missed putt from inside three feet at the 14th. On the calmest day of the week by a distance, the wind could not be blamed this time, but the greens were baked rapid and, much to Bob MacIntyre’s irritation, inconsistent from one surface to the next. He later admitted ‘venting’ at a rules official during a final-round 70 that left him seven over.
Rory Mcilroy’s wedge game let him down this week at the US Open in New York
The Irishman finished the tournament six-over – and outside the top 30
‘The minute this goes out I am going to get bad rep for it, but they’ve put different amounts of water on each green,’ MacIntyre said. ‘They have different softness.
‘I was pissed off and thought I am going to go and ask the question. I don’t normally do that, but I just thought, “You know what, I am going to ask him why”. He just gave me the answer I thought I was going to get, to be honest. But I was kind of venting a little bit.’
Reflecting on his tournament, Mcilroy said: ‘I think looking back on the entire week, I’ll obviously rue the back nine yesterday. I got myself to two under and then the wheels came off and played a really bad back nine. I sort of shot myself out of the tournament then. Obviously I was really disappointed coming away from the course last night.
‘You try to come out here today positive and you try to muster up the energy to put a good one in there, but a couple of bogeys on the front nine, I was just trying to race my way to the 18th green.’
While Wyndham Clark was fighting off the distinct possibility of choking away a six-shot lead in the final group, Tyrrell Hatton carded an impressive 67 to close on one over. A bogey at the last might yet have a delayed impact as it left Hatton with only a loose grip on the top-10 finish that would secure a place in next year’s field.
He said: ‘It was certainly a more enjoyable experience than the first three days.
‘I was happy to go out and play a pretty decent round. Obviously the last hole stings a bit. That was disappointing.
‘Now all I can hope for is that it stays top 10 and I’m guaranteed a spot next year.’
Incidentally, Joaquin Niemann ended on the same tally of one over par, throwing into sharp relief the consequences of taking 11 on the sixth hole of the first round – a score that included a two-stroke penalty for throwing his club in a tantrum about fire ants. Without that blip on the par four, he might have won the tournament.
