Major golf tournaments rarely fail to deliver drama, but last night’s conclusion to the US Open at Pinehurst was exceptional.

Bryson DeChambeau emerged the winner, as he had seemed likely to do after the third round, but the twists and turns it took to get him there was the stuff of a Hollywood scriptwriter.

The fact that Rory McIlroy was the other half of the drama made it special from an Irish perspective, but this was a heartbreaker for the Hollywood, County Down native.

Bidding for his fifth major and his first in ten years. McIlroy took a two-shot lead onto the 14th tee box with only five holes left for him to play and six for DeChambeau.

He had just nailed a fourth birdie in five holes, and De Chambeau had bogied to have all the momentum running in the Irishman’s direction.

Sadly it was not to be.  McIlroy finished those last five holes in three over par.  De Chambeau played what he described as the best bunker shot of his life to par the 18th and that was it.

Among those three dropped shots were two putts from around three feet, the first from that short he had missed all season.  To put that in perspective, since the start of the season, he had made 496 tap-in putts from that distance without a miss.

That’s what pressure does.

McIlroy has been here before, and there is every chance he will bounce back to be a contender again at the Open Championship in Troon next month, as well as in the Olympic Games in Paris after that.

And maybe you need to go to the lowest point before you fully bounce.  If so, then this was it.

He has been close to breaking the streak before. He is one of the most consistent Major players of all time in terms of being in contention, but this was one that he can only put down to himself.

If he’d made one of those simple putts, it would have gone to a play-off; made both, which he would expect to do almost 100 per cent of the time on the stats, and then he would have been the US Open Champion.

He will wake this morning with regret like he may never have experienced before.  How he handles that will be one of the stories of the summer, played out in the full spotlight of public curiosity.

The crucible of elite sport is a tough place to be on mornings like this, and while there will be many who will point out the huge rewards his career has brought, and the place he has as one of the greats, the pain will be no less acute for all of that.

 

 

 

 

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