Rory McIlroy says he wants another blast of foul weather in what is shaping as a forlorn pursuit of Jordan Spieth, the immaculate American putting master who leads him by 10 shots going into the final day of the 146th Open.
McIlroy’s judgment would seem to be predicated on the fact that his charge at the formidable troika of Americans – Spieth (who finished 11 under), Matt Kuchar (8) and Brooks Koepka (5) – failed to soar on an eerily peaceful Saturday afternoon, two days after he rescued his tournament from ignominy with some quite magnificent golf in the roaring rain.
Indeed, between his wretched five-bogey start on Thursday and his frustrating 69 on Saturday – when a double bogey, two bogeys and a missed eagle undid the good work of five birdies – he has played 27 of his best holes on a course that is made for a player of his imagination and talent, most dramatically on Foul Friday.
So he was minded to observe immediately on coming off the course: “I need to post a really low score in bad conditions tomorrow and hope the leaders slip a little.”
This is dominating his perception. And it is odd. It is what Proust, in Remembrance of Things Past, described as involuntary memory, when familiar incidents trigger recollections without effort. If he looked a little further into his past, he might think again.
A player brought up in the wind and rain of Northern Ireland is conforming to the view – on this week’s evidence - that the missing components to make him play to his maximum are a howling gale and buckets of adversity. As for those interloping Americans, they were supposed to drown on the links of the drenched Lancashire coast, not fly like eagles through the storm into Saturday’s sunlight.
Yet McIlroy loves the sun on his back. He surely cannot have forgotten what he said after wind foiled him at St George’s in 2011: “These conditions, I don’t enjoy playing in really. That’s the bottom line.”
Then there are his four majors – three in the United States, one at Royal Liverpool – all won in benign conditions. He lives in Florida. He plays a lot of his golf on those ludicrously perfect carpets in the United States. They say the Irish guard their freckles jealously, but McIlroy is hardly shy of warm weather.
Now, though, he wants a tempest. Maybe an earthquake would help. It is doubtful Spieth, in particular, is going to slip now. Some of his putting was awesome. Some of McIlroy’s was not. And it has been that way most of his season.
So what gives? The root cause of McIlroy’s mini-crisis really lies not in the skies but in the cracked rib which hindered his swing in the play-off for the South African Open in January. That tore seven weeks out of his season. In May, the injury forced another withdrawal from the Tour. On his return, he missed three cuts in four tournaments. And here he is, punching as hard as he can but fighting his own game as much as those of others.
On Saturday mastery of his gap wedge got him close enough to the hole for a regulation roll-in and a perfect birdie start. There were still 12 players under par, with scores tumbling all over the course. McIlroy was not exactly right among them, but lurking.
A bogey on three slowed his charge, but he chipped in over a ridge at the 4th to bring the gallery to their feet. At the 8th, he misjudged his greenside rescue shot and gave one back, but he still seemed in the mood to do damage.
With Spieth rolling in birdies for fun a couple of holes behind him, McIlroy needed to get his head down to eat into a gap that stood at five strokes. Ahead of his main rivals on the course, he trailed them still on the scoreboard: three behind Kuchar, two adrift of Koepka.
He turned in 32. The back nine is where he saved his tournament on day one. The vibes were promising.
But on the 10th – one of the course’s easier stretches – he pulled his tee-shot, had to fight his way out of a bunker and was faced with a long, curving putt for bogey. The ball cut an inch by, sending him back to one under, eight behind Spieth, who had slotted home yet another birdie. There was now a significant disparity between them in form, numbers and prospects.
McIlroy said later of that pivotal mistake: “I hit three-iron off the tee, which is bringing the two bunkers on the left into play, and that one on the right. I needed to either lay back and hit four-iron or five-iron and give myself a 170-yard shot in, or take those three bunkers out of play and keep it more up the left. At least then you’re only putting one bunker into play to hit it into instead of three. I was disappointed with that.”
Spieth did not make an error of that magnitude all day. His reading of the greens was uncanny and, as could be heard in his own running commentary with his caddy, he made one smart call after another. That has nothing to do with rain, wind or sunshine. It has to do with self-belief born of success. McIlroy has had plenty of that in the past; this is what he should be remembering, instead of hankering after the intervention of the elements.
“It’s nearly there,” he said of his game. “It’s not quite where I need it to be to win the biggest golf tournaments in the world. But it’s getting there.” It is unlikely it will have magically appeared when he wakes up on Sunday morning, looks out the window and sees not quite enough cloud cover to discourage the Americans.
