Closing double-bogey typifies McIlroy’s week

2011 champion misses cut by two strokes after late surge fizzles

OAKMONT, Pa. — Rory McIlroy spent the days before the U.S. Open searching for his game.

The world’s third-ranked player didn’t find it at Oakmont. McIlroy missed the cut Saturday after posting a two-round total of 8-over 148, two clear of the cut line at 6 over.

The 2011 U.S. Open champion followed up a disastrous 7-over 77 in the gloom on Thursday and early Friday with a wildly uneven 1-over 71. Starting on the back nine, McIlroy birdied four of his first seven holes to get back to 3 over and send a jolt into the gallery that a hot streak not unlike the four rounds he put together at Congressional five years ago was in the making. Only this time, it didn’t happen. Whatever momentum McIlroy generated disappeared on the par-4 fourth, when it took him four jabs of the putter to get in from 13 feet. He bogeyed the par-3 sixth but arrived on the tee box at the par-4 ninth right on the number. A leaky drive put him in a fairway sand trap. He had 158 yards to the flag when his approach shot hit the lip of the bunker and trickled back toward his feet. The ensuing double bogey assured McIlroy of an early exit at the Open for the first time since 2012.

McIlroy admitted after his shaky first round he’d been “struggling with my swing a little bit” since arriving in western Pennsylvania, even though he was coming off a solid stretch during the spring that included a victory back home at the Irish Open and a tie for fourth at The Memorial in his last start.

Fellow former U.S. Open champions Justin Rose and Ernie Els also bailed early. Rose was done in by a 40 on the back nine in the second round on his way to a total of 8 over. Els, who won the first of his three majors at Oakmont in 1994, posted consecutive 75s.

Phil Mickelson’s quarter-century quest for his first U.S. Open title will carry on to Erin Hills in Wisconsin next June after he shot 74-73, missing out by one shot. Mickelson promised to stick to his game plan of playing it smart rather than taking unnecessary risks, one he briefly abandoned on the short par-4 17th.

After saying there was “zero chance” he would try to drive the green on the 318-yard hole, he took aim and ended up in a greenside bunker. He couldn’t get up and down for birdie, then couldn’t convert a birdie on the 18th.

THIS ONE’S FOR YOU, SEVE — Jon Rahm’s debut in the U.S. Open included a tribute to the man who has inspired Spanish golfers for more than a generation.

The 21-year-old from Barrika, Spain, became the only amateur to make the cut at Oakmont thanks to a 1-under 69 in the second round. He did it wearing blue paints and a white polo, the same uniform worn by countryman Seve Ballesteros during many of his 91 career victories.

“I put this on on purpose, knowing that if at any time I felt like anything was against me, I would look at my clothes and be like, ‘What would Seve do?’” Rahm said.

Rahm, who twice won the Ben Hogan Award given to the top collegiate golfer while playing at Arizona State, will turn professional Monday.

Ballesteros died in 2011 at age 54 because of brain cancer.

BACK TO OAKMONT — The USGA didn’t even wait for this U.S. Open to end before announcing Oakmont will get another one.

USGA president Diana Murphy said Saturday the U.S. Open will return to Oakmont in 2025. It will be the 10th time Oakmont hosts the U.S. Open in a span of just under 100 years.

CHARLIE RIEDEL/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland collects himself after failing to get out of a fairway bunker on No. 9, his closing hole, during the second round of the U.S. Open on Saturday at Oakmont Country Club in Oakmont, Pa. With 158 yards to the green,...