PINEHURST, NORTH CAROLINA | Rory McIlroy can add Bryson DeChambeau and Pinehurst No. 2 to his growing list of major miseries. This one, however, was his most self-inflicted.
McIlroy turned a three-shot deficit at the start Sunday into a two-shot lead after he walked off Pinehurst’s 13th hole, but he bogeyed three of the last four holes, including short missed putts inside of 4 feet on 16 and 18, to open the door for DeChambeau to win his second U.S. Open.
DeChambeau saved par from under a magnolia tree and out of the fairway bunker on the last hole, draining a 4-footer to win after McIlroy cleared the stage in front of him. He got up-and-down for a winning par a la Payne Stewart 25 years ago, leaning back and letting out a massive roar that soon may be immortalized in a bronze statue of its own behind the 18th green.
That won’t be what McIlroy – who peeled out of the parking lot without comment – remembers as he contemplates another opportunity that got away.
It was an excruciating conclusion for the four-time major winner – even worse than coming up one-shot short a year ago to Wyndham Clark at Los Angeles Country Club when he concluded with 36 putts. At Pinehurst on Sunday, McIlroy was cruising with four birdies in a five-hole stretch from 9 to 13 to claim his first outright lead of the week. He walked to the 14th tee two up with five to play.
But once he grabbed the lead, the collar seemed to tighten on McIlroy’s powder blue shirt. He made a nervy save at 14 but bogeyed 15 and 16, missing a 2½-foot putt on the latter to fall back into a tie at 6-under with DeChambeau, who minutes before had lipped out a short putt of his own on 15.
McIlroy will be haunted by another miss from just under 4 feet at the last after putting himself in position to apply the pressure on DeChambeau, who found trouble under a tree behind the Northern Irishman. Suddenly needing only a par to win instead of forcing a two-hole aggregate playoff, DeChambeau chopped out into the fairway bunker and hit a clutch shot from 55 yards to 4 feet. He didn’t miss.
McIlroy had been trending toward a breakthrough at the U.S. Open since 2019, finishing T9, T8, T7, T5 and runner-up heading into Pinehurst. But he failed to do one better, with self-inflicted mistakes under the pressure of trying to put an end to a 10-year major-championship drought that now includes 21 top-10s, four of them runners-up.
McIlroy’s putter heated up like the North Carolina summer on Sunday – until it malfunctioned at the worst time. He rolled in a 21-footer on the first hole to set the tone for the day. The roar delivered the message back to the tee box to 54-hole leader DeChambeau that the Northern Irishman was coming.
Birdie putts of 15, 27, 22 and 5 feet, respectively, on Nos. 9, 10, 12 and 13 found the bottom of the hole and lifted McIlroy into his first outright lead as chants of “ROR-EY! ROR-EY!” echoed across the sandhills.
Alas, those premature echoes will be all he has to show for the experience except another silver medal.
Scott Michaux