You can look at it from each and every angle. Squinting. Eyes wide open. Even close your eyes and let visualisation float into grey matter.
No matter what way you peer, the elephant remains in the room. For Rory McIlroy, that quest for another Major, a fifth, is no clearer on time of delivery. Ten years it has been that way. Days, weeks and years all bloating into an ever-extending barren spell to torment.
The US Open at Pinehurst No.2 offers the Northern Irishman another opportunity next week, in what will be his 37th Major championship since he lifted his fourth career Major in the 2014 US PGA Championship.
Of course, for a player of his world class, there have been chances. Last year’s US Open at the Los Angeles Country Club can be filed away in the ones-that-got-away folder, for one. The 150th Open at St Andrews in 2022 another. Others, too.
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As ever, the USGA – who run the US Open – set out their stall to examine every facet of a player’s game. At Pinehurst, the set of questions differs. There is none of the heavy rough so often associated with typical US Open venues but that doesn’t mean it will be any easier. Far from it, in fact, because the firm and fast nature of the No.2 course set-up calls for a different mindset and strategy and shot-making and execution.
McIlroy, again, will seek to provide the answers and, although there aren’t the same baggage issues that come with each annual return to Augusta in his search for a green jacket, time is no longer his friend.
With 10 years of trying and, so far, failing to get a fifth career Major – with Seve Ballesteros (5) and Nick Faldo (6) still ahead of him in the pecking order as far as modern European Major winners are concerned – McIlroy cannot be immune from the mental scarring that has been accumulated over those years.
His only US Open win came at Congressional in 2011 – his breakthrough Major success. And, after a sequence of three successive missed cuts from 2016 to 2018, McIlroy has had top-10 finishes in each of the last four years, the closest being a runner-up finish to Wyndham Clark in Los Angeles last year.
Yet, in Paul McGinley’s mind, there is no doubt that McIlroy is a better player now than he was when he lifted the Wannamaker Trophy a decade ago. But there are concerns in his mind too. About the mental scar tissue. About the firm and fast conditions at Pinehurst.
“I think Rory’s better equipped than he’s ever been before but I don’t think he’s going to excel in those conditions. He’s equipped to play better in them than in the past. His chipping is fantastic. He’ll have an advantage around Pinehurst because of his ability to chip, there’s a lot of chipping, a lot of run-off areas. He’s one of the best chippers in the game for all the talk of his long hitting. And I think his putting is in good shape.
“I’ve said it many times. He’s a better golfer now than he was before. There’s no weakness in his game now. You can’t say his wedge play is bad. It’s good. He’s one of the best players ranked [from] 100 yards on tour. Overall, he’s a better player. But, there’s no doubt, there’s a mental hurdle he has to jump to get over the line in Major championships again. That’s what is holding him back. It’s the glue.
“Look at Real Madrid in the Champions League final. It’s in their DNA and [Carlo] Ancelotti is part of that. It’s in their DNA, a feeling, a sense they’re going to win. And Rory doesn’t have that in the Majors at the moment. When you don’t win for 10 years, that’s the doubt that creeps in and that’s the biggest hurdle. The rest is all there.”
McIlroy has spoken in the past of his desire to leapfrog Ballesteros and Faldo in that Major roll-of-honour. It’s one of the his primary career goals, part of his legacy.
And, on that point, McGinley – who aside from his punditry work with Sky Sports and the Golf Channel has also officially assumed the role of strategic adviser as part of Luke Donald’s Ryder Cup team ahead of the 2025 match in Bethpage – is adamant that McIlroy’s performances outside of the Majors show mental strength.
As McGinley put it: “I don’t want to give the impression that Rory is mentally weak, he’s far from it. You look at his career in the last 10 years and what he’s won since he last won a Major championship and it’s phenomenal, it’s unmatched. Nobody comes close.
“He is, by far in my opinion, the best player in the modern era by quite a ways, and by no means is he mentally weak. But there is an element of doubt that’s crept in, that’s been validated by 10 years of not succeeding in Major championships. He knows that. We all know it . . . and it’s not that he can’t do it. It’s not that he lacks guile. It’s not that he lacks heart. It’s not that he lacks the game.
“But the element of doubt has risen every year and it’s been validated by not getting over the line, and it’s only a natural human emotion.”
Of course, only McIlroy can find the solution. To get over the line again, to add to his career Major tally and to join and move beyond Ballesteros and to then join and move beyond Faldo.
“I think if he wins one . . . it’s like a goalscorer who hasn’t scored for a number of matches and then it goes in off his arse or off his leg or when he’s not looking and all of a sudden then the floodgates open again.
“It’s exactly the same scenario, that element of doubt seizes you and then the only way to get rid of it is validation because he lives in the real world and when people say ‘you haven’t won a Major for 10 years’, he goes, ‘yeah, I know, nobody is more aware of it to me’.
“But if he gets a win under his belt, he goes, ‘Yeah, you know, I won a US Open the other week and I’m ready to go again’. I think it would be a release valve and should he get one over the line, I expect to see two or three come quickly because, for me, he’s the best player of his era.”
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