Rory McIlroy admits his golf game has been really good over the last few years but not quite good enough to win the big titles and he has set himself a challenge of ditching his tag as golf’s ‘nearly man’ heading into next season.
It seems unfathomable that a player with four major championship wins could be categorised as a nearly man. But circumstances are everything and McIlroy’s wait for a fifth major title will enter an eleventh year having passed up huge chances to end his drought over the past three seasons.
The 2022 Open Championship and 2023 US Open were McIlroy’s two best chances since winning the 2014 PGA Championship until he let slip a glorious chance to win the US Open earlier this year, falling at the final hurdle and allowing Bryson DeChambeau to swoop in.
McIlroy couldn’t achieve redemption at the Paris Olympics earlier this month. A barrage of birdies saw him move into the medal places only for his wedge approach to the 15th to find a watery grave and need his hopes of a podium place.
It’s been an all too familiar tale for the Holywood man over the last decade who now seems to have accepted he has a mental frailty when under pressure.
“I just have to finish off tournaments better. There’s been glimpses where I have done it. Like Quail Hollow, for example,” said the world number three whose season will be defined by what happened in Pinehurst and Paris regardless of whether he can lift a fourth FedEx Cup title at the end of the Playoffs.
“But obviously the U.S. Open, Olympics. Yeah, it’s just sort of — I feel like this year and maybe the last couple years I’ve just found a way to hit the wrong shot at the wrong time. That might go into preparation and trying to practice a little more under pressure at home.
“I mean, you go through these things in golf, and you go through these little challenges, and you just have to try to figure out a way to get through it, and my challenge right now is that. It’s really good but not quite good enough to sort of take home the silverware. It’s just something I’m having to work through.”
Viktor Hovland was asked in an earlier press conference if he would prefer to have had Scottie Scheffler’s season or Xander Schauffele’s.
Both players are by far and beyond the two best in the world with Scheffler winning a second Masters title and an Olympic gold medal to go alongside his six PGA Tour titles while Schauffele has recovered from his pummelling at the hands of McIlroy at the Wells Fargo to win the US PGA and Open Championship titles.
McIlroy was asked which season he would prefer and he went with Scheffler’s.
“I think winning the Masters, an Olympic gold medal, winning, whatever it is, six times, it’s pretty hard to top that,” who was in awe of Scheffler’s gold medal winning back nine of 29 at Le Golf National.
“But for him to just keep it going, yeah, he’s amazing even when you think he’s not really in the tournament or he’s sort of on the fringes of contention. He always seems to find a way to hit the shots or hole the putts.
“I’ve described Scottie as relentless, and this is just another example of that. He’s had an incredible couple of years. It was sort of like once he won that first one, it’s just like the flood gates have opened and he’s found a next gear and a next level.
“As a golf fan, it’s really cool to see.”
