US Open: There is nothing left to say for Rory McIlroy

PINEHURST, NC – Where does Rory McIlroy go from here? Where do you even start picking up the pieces of a shattered dream?

Does he console himself with the fact that, once again, he was in contention for a big chance until the final holes?

Does he believe that he has lost three majors in the last two years – the 2022 Open Championship, the 2023 US Open and this one – because of a total of four strokes?

Will he collapse? Implode? Does he slog his way through the rest of his career wondering how six-foot putts on Sunday night could have changed his life?

Sunday night at the US Open at Pinehurst, McIlroy saw his best chance to win a major in the last decade – a decade, let’s not forget, already full of near misses – rolling towards the cup, looking over the edge and to the right lips out. Twice.

Behind him, Bryson stalked DeChambeau, waiting for the opportunity to strike. By the back nine, DeChambeau had given away the three-shot lead he had started the day with, but he remained focused, both on McIlroy and on his own play. And when McIlroy’s third shot on 18 settled within three feet of the pin, DeChambeau had a moment of doubt.

Man, if he makes par, I don’t know how I’m going to beat him, DeChambeau thought.

“Then I heard the moaning,” he said afterward. “It was like an adrenaline rush came over me. I said, Okay, you can do this.”

The moaning. I’ve covered thousands of sporting events over the years, and I’ve never heard a sound like this coming from a gallery, a crowd, or a gathering. It was a primal scream of pain, frustration, anger and disbelief. The thousands who gathered around the 18th green went through all the stages of grief in an instant, from denial to sad, bitter acceptance. Only the real meatheads in the crowd – and there were a few, like the one who shouted, “It looks bad!” against McIlroy after his tee shot on 18 – would have wanted DeChambeau to win that way.

“If he missed that putt,” DeChambeau said, “I would never wish that on anyone. It just happened that way.”

Every championship ends for someone with a broken heart. But at this point, every golf major ends in heartbreak for McIlroy. Every time the sun sets on another big Sunday and McIlroy leaves the 18th green without a trophy; every time he has to walk into another big week and face the questions: “Is it going to happen this week, Rory?” every time an engraver types out another player’s name… well, how much more can one man take?

This is the point where we insert the usual disclaimer that, yes, “millionaire golfer can’t win certain tournaments” is a 1 percent of 1 percent problem. If that’s all you’re bringing up when you consider McIlroy’s decades-long and slowly progressing catastrophe, then your point has been made. Thanks for stopping by.

Players of McIlroy’s caliber don’t play golf to get rich; they get rich because they are very good at golf. There are plenty of players who have made eight figures of wealth on the golf course and never come close to a major trophy. (Some of them were even on the leaderboard on Sunday.)

The record will show that McIlroy missed putts at No. 16 and No. 18 totaling six feet, misses that allowed Bryson to catch DeChambeau and then pass him for the U.S. Open trophy. But the numbers aren’t the real story here. The tragedy – and again, this is a sport- tragedy, not a real tragedy – is that McIlroy knows he messed this one up. He knows he had one hand on that trophy. He knows that if he made these putts a thousand more times, he would probably make them all.

The reason McIlroy has been such a fan (and media) favorite for so many years is that he always looked so recognizably human. He’s a sports fanatic, he loves TV shows like “Succession” and he can even belt out a halfway decent bar band version of “Don’t Stop Believin.” In a sports world that is increasingly dominated by brand-friendly machines that utter predictable clichés. McIlroy’s willingness to tackle tough topics – like golf’s persistent divide – is rare and admirable.

He did not speak to the media on Sunday evening, in his courtesy Lexus climbing and spinning the tires on the way to Pinehurst, and I can’t blame him at all. What is he going to say that we don’t know yet? Why does he have to tear his heart open for our inspection when we saw everything we needed to see, right there on the 18th green, and in the scorers room in the clubhouse? The man deserves to grieve this loss in peace.

Where does he go from here? What is he doing? How does he bounce back from such a devastating defeat after a decade? I have no idea. Not you either. McIlroy himself probably doesn’t either.

After this week, there will be no more easy putts, and no more easy answers.