“Great day until it wasn’t:” Rory McIlroy opens up on U.S. Open collapse for first time

Rory McIlroy spoke for the first time since suffering a demoralizing defeat on the second hole at Pinehurst last month.

Ahead of this week’s Genesis Scottish Open, the tournament he won in dramatic style a year ago, McIlroy called the final round of this year’s U.S. Open “a great day until it wasn’t.” McIlroy was at eight under par and leading by one stroke over Bryson DeChambeau with four holes to go, but he made three bogeys late in the round to lose by one stroke, ending a decade-long drought of major championship wins.

“I did something on Sunday that I haven’t done in a few years. I took control of the golf tournament. I made the putts when I needed to – well, most of the time. I made the birdies too. I really played to my potential,” said McIlroy, who was 4-under after 14 holes.

“And then, obviously, it was disappointing to miss those last two putts, but [par] The putt on 16 and then, of course, the putt on 18.”

The failure to make par on the 16th hole will live in U.S. Open infamy for years to come. McIlroy made par from 2 feet, 6 inches away, his first miss of within 3 feet this year. A dropped shot on the 16th hole (two consecutive bogeys) put McIlroy back in a tie with DeChambeau.

“I remember vividly being a little nervous on the 16th hole waiting for that second putt,” McIlroy said.

“Very good [lag] Putt. About halfway through, my first putt looked like it was going to be a birdie, but it was about a foot away from where I thought it was going to finish. So I marked it. And Patrick [Cantlay’s] When you putt, you can take it easy. Obviously, the greens are difficult. It’s the end of the U.S. Open Sunday. You have to be really careful about what you’re doing.

“I think I had to wait a little bit before making that second putt. It’s hard standing there not thinking about the future and noticing where Bryson’s ball was on the fairway. But again, I owe it to myself to be in the right mental state. And I made a decent putt on the 16th hole. The green caught the ball. I think I read it a little right of center. Maybe it started a little left. I think it started straight, a little left of center, but the green caught the ball and it hooked on the far left. It wasn’t a terrible putt, but I definitely had a little bit of anxiety before I hit it.”

McIlroy’s misgivings about the North Carolina heat continued afterward, as he pulled his approach on the par-3 17th hole, but made a nice up-and-down shot from the bunker to save par.

Photo: Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images

After missing the fairway on the 18th hole, McIlroy hit his second shot just short of the green. Then he hit a pitch shot 3 feet, 9 inches over the hole and missed a sideways par, a tough putt in any situation, but especially on the 72nd hole of the U.S. Open. Meanwhile, in the group behind McIlroy, DeChambeau, who was leading by one stroke thanks to McIlroy’s bogey, hit a beautiful bunker shot from 55 yards to 2 feet to win the tournament.

“That last putt was a really tough one. I knew exactly where Bryson was going to be off the tee. I knew I had to hit it really soft,” McIlroy explained.

“If the back shot hadn’t been an issue, I would have hit it harder, but I was kind of lost and I wasn’t sure if Bryson was going to get par. It was the type of shot where if the putt didn’t go in, you have to make sure it wasn’t going to go 10 feet. It could have easily gone in.”

He didn’t hit the left-to-right breaker, the toughest putt for a right-hander, high enough and it slid low.

“I probably had about two or two-and-a-half cups to go and it was a three-and-a-half-foot putt. I took a big swing at it, especially because it was an easy one. If the next putt wasn’t as important in match play, I would have approached it differently,” McIlroy added of his mistake on the 18th hole.

Photo: David Cannon/Getty Images

“But I knew Bryson hit his tee shot left, so if there was still a chance to get into a playoff, I wanted to at least make sure that was the case.”

McIlroy’s reasoning makes sense. The 2024 U.S. Open nearly led to a playoff when DeChambeau struggled left on the 18th hole. His driver shot came to a halt next to a tree root, forcing the LIV Golf star to hit his second shot into a bunker 50 yards short of the green. The rest is history.

But the Northern Irishman felt the pressure from DeChambeau all day.

“Looking back, I was probably a little too conscious of where Bryson was and what he was doing, but that was just the nature and flow of the golf course. After my tee shot on 14, I was kind of looking at the 13th green, waiting for the 15th tee shot and then I had to wait for him to hit his second shot on 14. The flow of the course allowed me to be very conscious of what he was doing at the same time, so I was able to come out of my own little world a little bit,” McIlroy explained.

“But when I look back on that day, just like I look back on the toughest moments of my career, I hope I learned a lot from it and used it to my advantage. That’s been a theme throughout my career. I was able to turn that tough moment into something great very quickly afterwards.”

Photo: Malcolm McKenzie/Getty Images

McIlroy has certainly been through some tough times in his career. The 2011 Masters comes to mind, when he was four strokes behind going into the final round on Sunday but lost with an eight-over 80. Two months later, he dominated the U.S. Open at Congressional to win by eight strokes and capture his first major title.

Perhaps history will repeat itself next week at Royal Troon. McIlroy tied for fifth in 2016. He has a tendency to bounce back, but it takes a lot of discipline to do so in this year’s Open, something he lacked on the back nine at Pinehurst. But a mistake is only a mistake if you don’t learn from it, and McIlroy feels he has learned from his late disaster last month.

“Obviously there are moments when you think back on the last four holes and wish things had been different,” McIlroy said.

“But I can learn from them and move on and it will be good to be back on the course this week at the Scottish Open and then of course I have another chance at Troon next week. It’s another chance. I’m playing great golf and it’s another chance to see if I can handle it better than I did a few weeks ago.”

Jack Mirko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation Playing Through. Follow For more golf articles, follow us on Twitter Jack Mirko In the same way.