Numbers don’t lie as McIlroy again leaves himself too much of an uphill battle
B Y any reasonable judgment, seven top-20 finishes in 10 Major championships is a good return, particularly when, within that, three of them are inside the top 10 and another three are in the top five. But Rory McIlroy has long since stopped being judged by simply being good.
Since he last won a Major title at the 2014 US PGA Championship, the finishing position might make it look as though he is genuinely competing but, a little like Tottenham in the Premier League in the past two seasons, he’s close enough to trick the mind, but too far away to land a blow.
Even as the final few holes ticked down on Sunday, the ‘what if’ phenomenon that envelops McIlroy’s Majors in the past three years was in full swing.
As he teed it up at the par-5 15th, McIlroy was four shots off the lead on five-under par. What if he eagled and closed the gap? Maybe he could then eagle 17, and birdie 18. Maybe, he could get to sevenunder, nine-under, 10-under, and put his name next to Jordan Spieth and Matt Kuchar, whose battle at the time was less ‘duel in the sun’ and more ‘pain in the rain’.
As the hope lingered, McIlroy ripped his drive left, lost his ball and took a bogey. Then the dream rose again with an eagle on 17 that a birdie at the last could leave him in a tie with Haotong Li, and if Spieth and Kuchar continued to fade, who knows? Maybe.
McIlroy deserves a degree of credit for bouncing back from the disaster of his opening nine holes on Thursday but that must be balanced against how often he puts himself in that position.
In the 10 tournaments since winning in Valhalla, McIlroy’s average first-round score in Majors is 72.5 which given the depth of talent that now exists, leaves him on the back foot almost every time.
At Birkdale, after eight holes, McIlroy was five-over par while Spieth was two-under, albeit in more favourable conditions. That seven-stroke difference was the same gap when it was all said and done on Sunday afternoon.
McIlroy suffered five bogeys in six holes yet it wasn’t until the first on Sunday – 55 holes into his tournament – that Spieth dropped his fifth stroke.
Spieth’s minor meltdown almost cost him the tournament, yet because of the strength of his opening three rounds, it meant there was a chance to absorb a few punches on the ropes and come back out fighting.
It also means that, however badly things are going when in the lead, somebody must have the nerve to apply pressure and overtake, which Kuchar was unable to do. Even after two of the worst hours of his playing career, Spieth was still just one shot off the lead with five holes to play.
In contrast, McIlroy’s starts mean that he cannot afford any mistakes such as the two bogeys and double-bogey around the turn on Saturday which let the air out of the momentum balloon. And yet, still, with four holes left on Sunday, it felt like there was a chance.
In the seven Majors of the last 10 which he has made the cut, the contrast between weekday and weekend McIlroy is startling.
In 2015 at the Masters, McIlroy
shot two-under on Thursday/ Friday and 10-under on Saturday/ Sunday; at that year’s US Open it was another eight-shot difference – from four-over to four-under – while the US PGA saw him improve by five shots over the weekend from two-under to seven-under.
Of those seven events, the Masters in 2016 was the only one where McIlroy’s score was worse on the weekend than before the cut was made, when a disastrous Saturday 77 ended his chances.
That, however, is the exception because since 2014, his record when he has reached Sunday reads: Thursday and Friday (14 rounds): five-under par; Saturday and Sunday (14 rounds): 27-under par.
With the brilliance which regularly follows an early calamity, McIlroy tantalises fans with the idea of overhauling the leaders, which is what makes him the most watchable golfer in the game.
Yet, for great players like himself, Spieth and, formerly, Tiger Woods, it’s leading from the front which allows them to bludgeon opponents and let the chasing pack make their own mistakes in trying to reel in them in.
Woods was famously four-over par through nine holes at Augusta in 1997 but was 22-under for the next 63, which saw him win by 12. But those recoveries are as exceptional as men with 14 Majors.
Woods won every one of those Majors while starting the final round in the lead, while Spieth was tied for the lead after 54 holes of the 2015 US Open, and he was four and three shots clear in his other two victories.
McIlroy has led by eight, six and one, with one tie for the lead in his four Major victories which, as it did at the 2011 US Open, and the British Open and US PGA in 2014, allowed him the buffer of having his worst round of the week on Sunday and still win with relative comfort.
More importantly given his recent slow starts, he has, at worst, been within one shot of the lead after the opening round in those four Majors he has gone on to win. As holder of the course record at Quail Hollow, which hosts this year’s US PGA, McIlroy should have a degree of confidence and it’s unlikely that he will be as big as 18/1, as he was last week, when the tournament begins on Thursday fortnight.
It’s a measure of how erratic he was that he was available at 90/1 for victory at Birkdale midway through his round on Thursday, and had closed to 5/1 by the end of the second round on Friday.
Yet again, however, the damage had already been done and the late charge was undermined by trying to sprint having set himself up on an uphill course.