McIlroy’s tilt at greatness fails again
Northern Irishman unable to exploit inspired revival World No4 recovers poise but putting lets him down
Not so long ago, Rory McIlroy was the phenomenon deemed capable of 20 majors or more. On an often gruelling Open Saturday in Southport, it was tempting to start revising that prognosis downwards, as the traditional “moving day” turned for him into one of exasperating inertia. While Jordan Spieth, five years his junior, streaked into the sunset, he slipped agitatedly into the shadows.
There was a sense of wonder at Hoylake when McIlroy achieved his third major triumph at the age of 25. Spieth, however, is on the cusp of doing so at 23. The paradigm has shifted once more, the standards to secure these titles elevated again by the Texan prodigy. McIlroy memorably bristled when it was suggested that in golf ’s Fab Four of himself, Spieth, Jason Day and Dustin Johnson, he was at risk of being shunted into the Ringo Starr role. This is another major, though, that could relegate him to a spare part. Eleven have passed since he last won one of them, in the gloaming at Valhalla. “An opportunity lost,” he lamented.
A round that had augured so well, when McIlroy closed to three behind Spieth after five holes, took a sharp nosedive soon after. The critical juncture came at the 10th, a sharp dogleg left that necessitates pinpoint accuracy off the tee. Mindful of this, McIlroy reached for a long iron to ensure control and still deposited his drive straight in a fairway bunker.
It was a cardinal error, duly punished. He veered from sand to greenside rough and watched in horror as his putt for a bogey five dribbled off to the right, realising that he had slipped from contention to middle-of-the-pack anonymity. “I took the wrong club,” he said. “You either hit one that stays short of all those bunkers or you take one that at least only brings the clubs at 300 yards into play. I did neither.”
He continued to do his stretching exercises but could do nothing for his sagging shoulders. As one who feeds off adrenalin and momentum, the idea that he was slipping backwards while all about him made hay was an affront. He lashed at his drives with visible extra frustration, propelling a couple of them halfway to Blackpool. But the problem, as has become familiar of late, was his putting.
McIlroy conceded last year that he was sometimes too proud to seek the advice of others on the greens, preferring to work it out on his own. On this latest evidence at Birkdale, he is still paying the price for such stubbornness. Butch Harmon, Tiger Woods’s former coach, has described his putting action as “robotic”, with an overemphasis on precision above any natural flow. His judgment of distance, in particular, looks far from dialled-in. At the sixth, he unforgivably left his effort short.
Nine adrift of Spieth, McIlroy has in all likelihood given himself too arduous a pursuit today. The inquest threatens to be a painful one: he had recovered his poise in this tournament after a first-nine collapse on the opening day that had prompted caddie J P Fitzgerald to tell him to pull himself together, but he neglected to capitalise.
It is not the first time that a Saturday
How the 10th hole derailed Rory 2nd
He can only just get the plugged ball out of the bunker lie, flicking the ball over the steep face, where it lands and spins back to the edge of the second bunker
Standing in the bunker, he hacks the ball with a horizontal club off the fringe into the rough around the green
He chips out of the “hay” to 15ft
McIlroy’s uphill putt falls short
Taps in for a double bogey
3rd 4th 5th 6th
surge by McIlroy has blown itself out. At Augusta, with a Grand Slam in prospect, he faltered on the third day, needing to settle for another back-door top-10 finish.
For all the more fevered verdicts on his performances, there is little fundamentally awry with McIlroy’s game. True, he has not won a major since the USPGA in 2014. And yes, he has struggled to adjust to his TaylorMade clubs after sponsor Nike stopped manufacturing his equipment. But the essentials remain as sound as ever. “It’s almost there,” McIlroy said. “Just a few sloppy swings.”
He is not heralded by fellow Ulsterman Graeme McDowell as “BMW – the Ultimate Driving Machine” for nothing, with his tee-shots over the closing holes metronomically brilliant. At the 15th, spectators approaching the crosswalk were bemused when McIlroy’s ball leapt beyond them. The dramatic skies above, with angry clouds offset by the setting sun, formed a neat climatic metaphor for his day: lightness one minute, shade the next.
The gnawing thought for McIlroy is that he understands the essentials of a successful Open quest. At Royal Liverpool he was unassailable from start to finish. He grew up on the finest links courses in Northern Ireland, marmalising opponents everywhere from Royal Portrush to Royal County Down.
The Open should, hypothetically, be the major where he feels most comfortable. And yet the ingredients are not quite melding. Spieth was reared on the inland layouts of Dallas, far from elements like these, but he has all but dominated McIlroy here. The homegrown hero needs to find a way to fix that anomaly – and quickly.