2023 British Open: Return to Hoylake highlights Rory McIlroy’s major misfortunes for nearly a decade
HOYLAKE, England – In the breathless days following Rory McIlroy’s emotional major milestone at the 2014 Open Championship, even a legend was lured into reckless talk by the Northern Irishman’s performance.
“Rory is on par to [win 18 majors],” Jack Nicklaus gushed. “I would be very surprised if he doesn’t.”
It was the type of hyperbole that bubbles up when you win four majors by an average of 4.75 shots in four years. McIlroy was a generational player doing generational things and the Golden Prognosticator was here for all of it.
In Nicklaus’ defense, at 25, McIlroy was the third youngest player to reach the three-quarter pole of the Grand Slam mile and in the Hoylake twilight following his two-shot victory he cast an impossibly imposing shadow. It was a much different story as he made the same walk Sunday in a cold, drenching rain on his way to another middling finish and another wasted major season.
Full-field scores from the 151st Open Championship
McIlroy’s lost decade is a study in contrasts. In the 3,267 days since he won his last major, the ’14 PGA Championship, he’s arguably pieced together a World Golf Hall of Fame career with 15 PGA Tour victories, including The Players Championship and two World Golf Championships, three FedExCup titles and 81 weeks as the world’s top-ranked player. He’s become the game’s most polarizing figure as golf spiraled into chaos the last two years and he’s also failed to deliver on the promise Nicklaus predicted.
In the 34 majors he’s played since winning the ’14 PGA — the anchor Grand Slam event before it relocated to May in 2019 — McIlroy’s resume is as impressive as it is incomplete. He has 20 top-10 finishes, including Sunday’s tie for sixth after teeing off more than an hour before front-runner Brian Harman and nine shots off the pace, and 10 top-5 showings, but you can count on one hand how many legitimate chances he’s had to add to his major haul.
The ’18 Masters set the template for McIlroy’s major misses after he moved to within two shots on the back nine, but he ultimately played his last 13 holes in 2 over to finish tied for fifth. Later that year at The Open he made another late Sunday run with an eagle at No. 14 to tie Francesco Molinari for the lead, but he played his final four holes in even par to finish two back.
At the ’21 U.S. Open, McIlroy was 4 under through 10 holes and tied for the lead before playing Nos. 11 and 12 in 3 over par to finish tied for seventh. Last year at St. Andrews was particularly frustrating, with McIlroy hitting 18 greens in regulation in the final round but his 36 putts left him two shots behind eventual champion Cameron Smith; and last month at Los Angeles Country Club he moved into a share of the lead with a birdie at the first followed by 16 pars and a bogey for a 70 and a runner-up showing.
Of all McIlroy’s near-misses since ’14, he’s never offered the defining meltdown. There are no “Jean van de Velde” moments over the last decade that define his foundering, only quiet brushes with history that always leave more questions than answers.
Saturday at Hoylake was a textbook example of McIlroy’s major curve. He began Round 3 with birdies at three of his first five holes to move into the top 5, albeit still well off Harman’s pace, only to cruise home with 12 pars and a dropped shot at No. 12. Sunday was more of the same – three birdies through five holes, again, and even par the rest of the way to finish a touchdown behind Harman.
With hindsight as the ultimate cheat code, consider that when McIlroy left Hoylake in ’14, Brooks Koepka had played just five majors, had just graduated from the secondary European circuit to the DP World Tour and was 75th in the world. Since that Sunday, Koepka has surpassed McIlroy on the all-time list with five major victories, including this year’s PGA Championship.
Winning isn’t easy at the game’s highest level — and winning a major is impossible to quantify. No one knows that better than Rickie Fowler, who finished second in ’14 at Hoylake, but when asked if he was surprised with McIlroy’s major fate the last decade, his answer spoke volumes, “very,” Fowler said.
“I mean, he’s obviously one of the best players in the world, and when he has weeks where he’s driving it well, that’s when he starts it at a pretty nice advantage,” Fowler said. “I don’t think there would be anyone that you would ask that wouldn’t be surprised, given the circumstances from that point until now that he has been searching for that fifth one. I think that shows a lot of what guys think about him and what kind of player he is.”
McIlroy will be a month shy of his 35th birthday when he arrives at next year’s Masters, which comes with even more heft as the last piece of his career Grand Slam puzzle. Based on recent history, most notably Phil Mickelson’s late-in-life major at the ’21 PGA, McIlroy has time, if not timing, on his side.
“It all has to fire. That’s the reality of it, and you only get four of those a year,” Padraig Harrington said. “He’s got four goals a year for another 20 years.”
In the world of “1 percent,” McIlroy’s play in the majors has certainly improved over the last few years compared to the late 2010s when he missed three cuts in five attempts and failed to seriously contend.
“Over the last two years, would I have loved to have picked one of those off that I finished up there? Absolutely. But every time I tee it up or most times I tee it up, I’m right there. I can’t sit here and be too frustrated,” McIlroy said following his closing 68. “You think about my performances in the majors between like 2016 and 2019, it’s a lot better than that. I’m optimistic about the future, and just got to keep plugging away.”
Perhaps optimism is McIlroy’s only refuge, but it’s impossible to overstate how ready-made this Open was for him. He would have been a greater favorite at the 2015 Open, which he missed because of a “kickabout” injury the week before, but not by much following his victory at last week’s Scottish Open and his record at Hoylake.
On Friday, he reasoned that his plight nine shots off the lead was no cause for concern and if he was rocked by his decade of futility in the majors, he wasn’t giving any of that grief away on Sunday.
“I don’t think that way,” he shrugged. “I think about trying to go and win a fourth FedExCup here in a couple weeks’ time, go try and win a fifth Race to Dubai, go and win a fifth Ryder Cup. I just keep looking forward.”
He certainly wasn’t looking back to 2014 and that magical Sunday at Hoylake when he embraced his mother, Rosie, and hoisted the claret jug on the 18th green. This Sunday, it was a relentless rain and a similar welcoming crowd awaiting at the final hole, but the iconic yellow leaderboard told a much more solemn tale.
The last time he left Hoylake, his major future seemed limitless. But after a lost decade in the majors, the limitations on even McIlroy’s outsized potential never felt so real.