PINEHURST, NC — The the greatest performer in golfBryson DeChambeau, dominate No. 2 Pinehurst and the 2024 US Open for three consecutive days. And then four-time major champion Rory McIlroy started to break the plateau.
McIlroy turned a three-shot deficit into one, and with birdies on No. 1 and No. 9, he pushed the tournament into a position that exists at the back of a professional tour, where the golf seems almost secondary to what is stirring in the hands, minds and hearts of competitors.
It’s hard to get to that spot at a major, and McIlroy has done it very few times since he last won such an event in August 2014. It’s rare for Rory to actually Hunt for history with nine holes still on the table.
If there is any criticism of his professional performances over the past decade, it is this: McIlroy was too good to give himself so little credit for holding the silverware with just two hours to go on Sunday.
This Sunday, the putts kept falling in a way they never had before. One at the par-4 12th from 22 feet. Another was the short par-4 13th, where he hit his tee shot over the back of the green. After four birdies over the entire five holes, McIlroy trailed DeChambeau by two shots, who hit just four of his first 10 fairway shots.
The tent billowed in the wind and the poles inside shook.
It would be a new and refreshing experience for Rory to break someone else’s heart.
The Northern Irishman continued to unload one driver after another, through the thick, dusty atmosphere of the US Open at one of golf’s great venues. McIlroy may have never hit that club better than he did through 72 holes this week. After a passable bogey on the 15th, he punished a 349-yard shot on the par-4 16th.
And then it all fell apart.
The past 10 years have played out differently than McIlroy envisioned. The past two years have been the same. And the past three months.
When you’re 25 years old with four majors to your name, just a career-shy Masters, you can’t imagine that life won’t always go your way. There is an innocence in the arrogance of youth.
Especially when your swing looks like Rory’s.
Who would have thought – after he bullied Phil Mickelson and Rickie Fowler at Valhalla in 2014 on his way to that fourth major – that McIlroy would be winless at the sport’s biggest events in the next 10 years? Who would have thought – after Martin Kaymer edged him by 15 shots in 2014 at Pinehurst and McIlroy missed the cut in three of the next four US Opens – that his best chance of winning was The next decade will come at the US Open… at Pinehurst?
Ten years later, however, McIlroy has certainly learned that life happens to all of us.
Both on and off the field, he suffered. Great people who are loved always do so because, to be loved, one must become vulnerable. And to become great, at some point one must stop being great.
However, it’s not just the big losses.
McIlroy called himself a “sacrificial lamb” after fighting for the survival of the PGA Tour against LIV Golf only to discover that his own commissioner had gone behind his back to sign a framework agreement with the Investment Fund public of Saudi Arabia. More recently, he filed for divorce before the PGA Championship only to announce a reconciliation with his wife early in the week before the US Open.
McIlroy has suffered. It seemed cruel that he had to suffer even more.
Even more cruel? This time, no one did it but himself.
According to the official record, the par putt on the 16th was 30 inches. McIlroy stood on the 16th tee on Sunday after the conversion 496 of 496 putts were from 3 feet this year. By the time he stood on the 17th tee box, he was 496th of 497th.
The tournament was tied again and the next 30 minutes were breathless.
McIlroy was up and down on 17, and DeChambeau picked up the pace on 16. Three holes combined to go, and they locked horns at 6 under. The 2011 US Open champion stands on the 18th tee box, while the 2020 US Open champion stands on the 17th tee box.
Pinehurst has lots of hallways where players can see and hear what those around them are doing. That 17-18 corner was as intense as I can remember the feeling of winning a major championship. This is the 26th time I have attended in person.
The silence, somehow, roared.
DeChambeau started walking after a final tee shot that landed 20 feet on 17. McIlroy saw the entire shot; There’s no way he couldn’t. He looked up and down the 18th fairway and blew into his hands to try to keep them from betraying him in a final rocket.
After Bryson birdied the 17th hole, McIlroy hit his approach shot from a sandy spot near the 18th hole. He hit it to 3 feet, 9 inches on the 72nd hole of the championship.
The gap was notable because McIlroy also missed that putt. This time, with a chance to potentially force a playoff or even win overall, he instead fell below five points, one point behind DeChambeau.
Three bogeys in his last four holes. McIlroy walked down the steps and into the scoring room with the most depressed look on his face ever.
Bryson drove into number 18 under the magnolia tree, and it nestled near a tree. He threw the ball in and out of the front bunker, 55 yards from the hole. Then, miraculously, he got up and went down with a bunker shot that he said was “the hit of my life.”
Before DeChambeau finished signing his card as the 124th US Open champion, McIlroy found his rental car, fleeing the crime scene he created.
Without speaking to anyone outside his inner circle, McIlroy started his Lexus, Kick up some gravel on his exit was in the air before DeChambeau finished speaking to the media. By all accounts, it was his worst and weakest drive of the week.
Players, like people, are remembered for how they handle adversity. We understand that our views of the people in our lives are shaped – for better or worse – by life’s moments. their life they consider the most difficult.
McIlroy, for all the grace he has shown throughout his career, handled both the pressure on and off the field in the final hour at Pinehurst as poorly as ever. Once he runs out of chips, he not only folds but also leaves the game altogether.
For someone who was considered the alpha and closer for most of his career, it was the most listless ending imaginable.
With the US Open hanging in his locker, McIlroy bogeyed three of his final four holes.
Missing 15- and 20-foot putts is one thing. It’s a completely different thing to get the fifth shot on the putt and miss the putt by 75 inches to lose the US Open.
With a gathering of media members surrounding him, McIlroy punched the accelerator and sped off the block.
It’s one thing to face the music and offer very little explanation. It’s a completely different thing to race to the airport while the whole world is waiting for your words.
CBS Sports reached out to McIlroy but he did not comment.
There have been some heavy losses for McIlroy’s camp. This is up there.
There was a near miss in St. Andrews in 2022 when the whole town was trying to bring him home. Last year’s US Open at Los Angeles Country Club when he did not score a single birdie in the final 17 holes and was one hole behind Wyndham Clark. There was the 2018 Masters when Patrick Reed took him to the cleaners. Those were easier events to showcase his resilience.
In each case, he was able to convince himself that he had just been defeated.
There was no such conviction this week.
Only those who didn’t watch the final four holes of the 124th tournament could miss the cold and cruel reality McIlroy carried with him when he left the course – a truth written on his face in the tent that read table and on the field. gravel clinks toward the player’s parking lot.
It was Bryson DeChambeau who paraded around with medals and trophies.
But it was Rory McIlroy who lost the US Open.
Rick Gehman, Patrick McDonald, Greg DuCharme recap the 2024 US Open at Pinehurst No. 2. Watch and listen to The First Cut above Apple Podcasts And Spotify.
