As Pressure Mounts, Rory McIlroy Has One Final Chance to End Major Drought

McIlroy's final round at the U.S. Open was eerily similar to his Sunday at St. Andrews and continues a strange year. McIlroy has one last major opportunity in front of him.

LOS ANGELES — Rory McIlroy would rather have tried and failed than not tried at all. The axiom describes his recent plight, and there is no good way for him to come up short in a major championship.

Miss the cut as he did at the Masters, and the questions are just as intense as they are after coming so close as he did Sunday at the U.S. Open. Making just one birdie over 18 holes is unlikely to get it done. Knowing that you still lost by just a single stroke is excruciating.

McIlroy is going on nine years since he won the last of his four major championships. It’s only made worse by the fact that the idea of winning a fifth or a sixth or a seventh seemed so inevitable back in 2014 when he won the PGA Championship at Valhalla.

That the British Open is returning to Royal Liverpool next month and the PGA to Valhalla next year are only reminders of how much time has passed. So is the fact that both Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson have captured major titles since McIlroy last captured one.

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On Sunday, it was simply a matter of not making any putts. McIlroy lost strokes to the field on the greens after gaining in the first three rounds. He made a two-putt birdie on the first hole at Los Angeles Country Club and added no more. He made 12 straight pars before his first and only bogey of the day at the par-5 14th. His best chance was a 4-footer he pulled on the 8th.

"The last real two chances I've had at majors I feel like have been pretty similar performances, like St Andrews last year and then here," McIlroy said. "Not doing a lot wrong, but I didn't make a birdie since the first hole today. Just trying to be a little more, I guess, efficient with my opportunities and my looks.

"Again, overall when you're in contention going into the final round of a U.S. Open, I played the way I wanted to play. There was just a couple of shots, two or three shots over the course of the round that I'd like to have back."

McIlroy hit 15 of 18 greens in regulation. Two that he missed were on the fringe. He gave himself chances, perhaps not close enough. The longest putt he made all day was a 6-footer for par.

As McIlroy noted, this was eerily similar to the Old Course last summer, where on the final day he shot 2-under-par 70 and hit all 18 greens, but his only birdies were two-putts. He had no three putts and both Cam Smith and Cam Young cruised by him. McIlroy, seemingly in control all week, didn’t do much wrong. “I just didn’t do much right," he said.

It's been an odd year for McIlroy. He won in his first start at the DP World Tour event in Dubai. He contended and ultimately finished second at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Then he missed the cut at the Players and the Masters, where he went in feeling great about completing the career Grand Slam and left devastated.

He struggled with his swing at the PGA Championship, but still tied for seventh. He tied for seventh at the Memorial after a final-round 75 and then shot even par at the Canadian Open while playing in the last group and dropped to a tie for ninth.

Now it’s on to Royal Liverpool in Hoylake, England, but first McIlroy has this week’s Travelers Championship. And he'll play the Scottish Open the week prior to the Open. "I'm focused on making sure I’m ready to go for Liverpool," he said.

It’s a last opportunity for a major in 2023, and a long eight-plus months until the Masters, where this is another kind of pressure.

McIlroy is choosing to put himself there rather than not at all.

"When I do finally win this next major, it’s going to be really, really sweet," McIlroy said. “I would go through 100 Sundays like this to get my hands on another major championship."