RORY SNAPS AS ANOTHER MAJOR SLIPS FROM GRASP
Club-throwing McIlroy can’t shake off those frustrating ‘fourth Beatle’ jibes
HANDS buried deep in his pockets, Rory McIlroy walked up the short slope to the green on the Postage Stamp at Royal Troon. In the grandstand, some spectators adapted the ‘Will Grigg’s on Fire’ song that Northern Ireland football fans made famous at the European Championship and included Rory’s name instead. For the first and last time yesterday, McIlroy broke into a happy grin.
A minute or two later, he left his putt a few millimetres short so that it hovered on the lip of the hole and stayed above ground. McIlroy turned round in disgust and stared out at the whitecaps on the Firth of Clyde, and the giant cruise ship that had been anchored off Ayr for most of the day as it sheltered from the weather. Like McIlroy at this 145th Open, it was going nowhere fast.
Another shot at winning a major was passing him by. He has not won one of golf’s biggest tournaments since the US PGA at Valhalla in the summer of 2014, a drought of what is about to become seven majors.
As his round went on and the putts failed to drop, the most talented player in golf must have had those stupid barbs about how he has become the Fourth Beatle behind Jordan Spieth, Jason Day and Dustin Johnson bouncing around in his brain.
In the end, he snapped. He had carved an errant shot into the crowd on the 15th and dropped back to level par, 11 shots behind the leader, Phil Mickelson. When he pushed an approach shot to the right on the 16th, he hurled his fairway wood into the turf and the head snapped off it. It summed up a day of frustration and disappointment.
‘I let one go right on the previous hole with a three iron and I did the exact same thing there,’ McIlroy said of the moment he threw his club. ‘So it was basically just a bad swing and no one likes to make the same mistake twice. That’s what happened.
‘The club-head on it came loose earlier in the week. I actually had to get that head re-glued, so it was partly to do with that and partly to do with the throw as well. I’ll get it re-shafted. The truck’s here so I’ll have it re-shafted and all will be well in the morning.’
Except all will not be well in the morning. McIlroy was cursed by some bad luck at this tournament with a draw that exposed him to the worst of the weather on Thursday and Friday, and in the circumstances he has not played badly. But he also knows that these are his golden years as a golfer and opportunities to underline his greatness are passing him by.
The Fourth Beatle stuff seemed to get to him earlier in the week and no wonder. McIlroy has won four majors already, more than any of the rest of the quartet. As many, in fact, as the rest of them put together. But he is judged more harshly than the rest of them because most believe that his talent should make him the true successor to Tiger Woods as the most dominant player in the game.
It has not been an easy few days for the Northern Irishman. He was embroiled in controversy when he was scathing about golf’s inclusion
at the Olympic Games in Rio next month. McIlroy deserves credit for his honesty but as the sparse crowds at Royal Troon this week have shown, these are uncertain times for golf and McIlroy has been accused of not caring about the future of the sport.
Perhaps he feels he has got enough on his plate re-establishing himself at the top of the rankings. It still sounds odd referring to him as anything other than the world No 1 but the fact is that Johnson, Spieth and Day have all overtaken him. There is no questioning his commitment or dedication but his confidence has been affected.
He did everything he could to force his way back into contention
yesterday. Starting at two under par, eight shots behind Mickelson, he was bold from the start. He took his driver out of his bag on the first tee and smote a mighty drive close to the green but bogeyed the hole. He repeated the pattern on the third when he three-putted.
When he dropped a shot on the fifth, it meant he had bogeyed three of the opening five holes. His hopes of a fast start, his intention of trying to put some pressure on the leaders by eating up the front nine, had come to nought and he never looked like mounting a charge. His driving was magnificent but he could not sink vital putts.
He ended the day on level par, 12 shots behind leader Henrik Stenson, who was locked in an epic duel for the lead with Mickelson all afternoon. ‘It looks like Henrik and Phil are playing their own tournament right now,’ McIlroy said wistfully, ‘so I will just go out and try to shoot a good score and try to finish as high as I possibly can.
‘I’ve been saying all week that you need to get off to a good start on this golf course and you need to be under-par early and I wasn’t able to do that. Just to be over par on the front was tough because you can’t really expect to pick up too many shots on the back nine because of how tough it is playing.’
After his round, nervous officials warned journalists that McIlroy would only take four questions and the new broadcasters of The Open, Sky, didn’t mention his club-throwing when they interviewed him.
Golf needs McIlroy now. It desperately needs him. It needs its best player up front and centre as it continues to grapple with life after Tiger Woods and thinning galleries. It needs him to shut everyone up about the Fourth Beatle and remind the rest of golf that he is its King.