“I would go through 100 Sundays like this to get my hands on another major championship”.
The very defiant last words spoken by Rory McIlroy following his bitter disappointment in letting slip victory at the 123rd U.S. Open.
Aside from the opening round, the Holywood, Northern Ireland-born McIlroy had been contention for the next two rounds on the host LACC course in suburban Hollywood, Los Angeles.
Heading intot the final round, the 2011 U.S. Open winner was just one shot off the lead, and then tied for the lead in just missing an eagle putt at the first in posting birdie.
Sadly, it would be McIlroy’s only birdie of his final round and, in the bitter end, coming up one shot shy of forcing a play-off with American Wyndham Clark, and with the 29-year-old defying the combined efforts of the world’s best to capture a maiden major.
Disappointingly, it’s now been two months shy of nine-years since McIlroy last tasted majors success and that was in the near darkness at the Valhalla course in being handed the Rodman Wanamaker trophy as the 2014 PGA champion.
The look on his face sums-up Rory McIlroy’s mood after finishing runner-up at the U.S. Open (Photo -USA Today)
It’s been a long wait, a 33 major championship wait since that day – Sunday, 16th August, 2014.
McIlroy’s efforts at the game’s highest level since that Sunday afternoon in suburban Louisville, Kentucky includes:
2nd – 2022 Masters, 2023 U.S. Open
T2nd – 2018 Open, 2022 U.S. Open
3rd – 2022 Open
4th – 2015 Master
T4th – 2017 Open
T5th – 2016 Open, 2018 Masters, 2020 Masters, 2022 Open
Other top-10s – 9
No-one over the past decade has banged harded of the majors victory door than McIlroy.
When asked for his verdict on his US Open campaign, a shattered McIlroy said: “I’m right there, it’s such fine margins.
“I have just got to keep putting myself in these positions. Sooner or later it’s going to happen for me.”
Of course, in the years following his 2014 double major-winning year, it was about capturing the Masters, and the one major McIlroy needed to put himself into golf’s most elite club.
However, it’s now been all about winning a fifth major and with that focus he’ll take to Royal Liverpool, and a major championship venue he has won.
In the lead-up to Royal Liverpool, McIlroy is contesting this coming week’s Travellers Championship in Cromwell, Connecticut and then it’s a few weeks off before crossing ‘The Pond’ for a first time this year for the July 13th commencing Genesis Scottish Open and then the following week’s 151st Open.
