Open eyes on Rory McIlroy as he looks to end decade-long wait for major win
The Northern Irishman’s last major win was at the 2014 US PGA Championship.
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Whichever way you look at it, by the time the 152st Open Championship gets under way at Royal Troon the length of time since Rory McIlroy’s last major victory is truly remarkable.
Since McIlroy followed his Open triumph at Royal Liverpool in 2014 by winning the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational and US PGA Championship in his next two starts, 38 majors have been staged and the 35-year-old Northern Irishman has won none of them, with only the 2015 Open missed through injury.
Brooks Koepka has racked up all five of his victories in that spell, Jordan Spieth three, Justin Thomas, Jon Rahm, Collin Morikawa, Dustin Johnson, Scottie Scheffler and Bryson DeChambeau two each, while 20 different players have tasted victory once, including a 50-year-old Phil Mickelson and an injury-ravaged Tiger Woods.
McIlroy has had to settle for commendable consistency, recording 21 top-10s, but had never had the title within his grasp with just a handful of holes to play in the manner that he did in the US Open at Pinehurst this summer.
A two-shot lead was admittedly brief as Bryson DeChambeau, playing in the group behind, matched McIlroy’s birdie on the 13th, but it is what happened on the 16th and 18th which will, in the words of Sir Nick Faldo on Sky Sports, “haunt Rory for the rest of his life”.
McIlroy missed from two feet and six inches for par on the 16th – his first failure all season from inside three feet – and then from three feet and nine inches on the last after a well-judged chip from short of the green.
DeChambeau then saved par on the 18th with a superb bunker shot from 55 yards and the look on McIlroy’s face, captured by cameras inside the scoring area, spoke volumes.
It was just as well it did as McIlroy immediately left the course without speaking to the media, announcing the following day on Instagram he would take some time off before returning to action by defending his Genesis Scottish Open title.
Speaking at the Renaissance Club, where he finished with two brilliant closing birdies 12 months ago to deny home favourite Robert MacIntyre, McIlroy insisted he had got over the heartbreak of Pinehurst “pretty quickly” and felt worse after previous missed opportunities.
“I think as you achieve more in the game, you can soften the blow, if you look at everything I’ve been able to accomplish,” McIlroy said.
“It’s been a while since I’ve won a major but I felt worse after some other losses.”
Those losses were the 2011 Masters, where he squandered a four-shot lead in the final round, and the 2022 Open at St Andrews, when a share of the lead and a closing 70 were not enough to hold off a charging Cameron Smith.
The good news for McIlroy’s legion of fans is that he followed his nightmare at Augusta National 13 years ago by winning his maiden major title on his next start, romping to an eight-shot success in the US Open at Congressional.
There are also precedents for ending lengthy major droughts, with Julius Boros and Hale Irwin both winning the US Open 11 years apart and Woods memorably winning the 2019 Masters almost 11 years on from his 2008 US Open victory.
A keen student of the game, chances are McIlroy will be well aware of such facts. Whether he can do anything about adding his name to the list remains to be seen.