2024 U.S. Open: Rory McIlroy aiming to convert latest major opportunity after string of near-victories

PINEHURST, NC – Rory McIlroy hasn’t won a major championship in a decade. It’s been a long slog, with several hazards, including two second places in the last two years alone. On Sunday, McIlroy will begin his final round at the 2024 US Open with a chance to finally qualify if he can convert a winning opportunity into a trophy-lifting victory.

McIlroy has finished in the top 10 20 times since his last major victory, the 2014 PGA Championship at Valhalla. And while some of those finishes came in ultra-low Sunday rounds, leading to clandestine leaderboard finishes, it was Rory’s proximity to the winner’s circle in recent years that made his big drought particularly frustrating.

Five of McIlroy’s last 10 major matches have resulted in T6 or better, including a runner-up finish at last year’s U.S. Open at Los Angeles Country Club. This more closely reflects the situation McIlroy will face on Sunday at Pinehurst No. 2. He will be in the second-to-last group like last year and will be paired with another of the game’s greatest talents, Patrick Cantlay, after playing alongside Scottie Scheffler in 2023.

The objective will be the same: chase the leader with a score that exceeds par to pressure the final group on their way towards the clubhouse. McIlroy wasn’t able to do that last year, picking up a birdie on the first hole and a bogey on the 14th for an even-par final round of 70 before falling to eventual winner Wyndham Clark by one shot.

“Pros and cons of being in the last group, and maybe playing a group ahead isn’t necessarily a bad thing,” McIlroy said after his 1-under 69 on Saturday. “I’m pretty much in the same position as I was last year going into the final day at LACC. So, familiar position, I’ve been here many times before, and hopefully tomorrow I produce the golf I need to improve.”

Although the 2011 U.S. Open marked McIlroy’s first major victory — riding the field at age 22 at Congressional Country Club — this particular major tournament was not an event suited to his game for much of his early career. McIlroy missed the cut five times in nine starts at the 2010-18 U.S. Open, and this week expressed the feeling that he didn’t have the right approach to attack the unique challenge presented by the USGA for its national championship.

A change in mindset – one that embraces the challenge and is willing to adopt a more conservative approach when necessary – has led to very different results. McIlroy has finished in the top 10 in each of his last five US Open starts and he credits his change in approach.

“I don’t really think I’ve adopted the US Open settings probably 10 years into my US Open career,” he admitted earlier in the week. “I played my first one in 2009 and I think I really changed my mindset towards them in 2019, the one at Pebble, and since then I’ve also started to like that style of golf a lot more. It’s very different from the golf we play week in and week out.”

That style of golf? It’s about showing humility with the field, playing conservatively at times but aggressively when you have the opportunity. And most importantly, it’s about knowing how to deal with adversity when you suffer a setback, trying to hit the middle of the greens, giving yourself an opportunity on each hole, but “taking the medicine if you have problems”.

Even within your effort thus far here at Pinehurst, there is a lesson to be taken and points to improve in your closing. Two late bogeys (at the 15th and 17th) kept McIlroy out of the final pairing with Bryson DeChambeau and prevented him from being one shot out of the lead, rather than maintaining the three-shot deficit he faces on Sunday.

Turning the results of these tough situations around and ending a great decade-long drought will come down to finishing better, making the necessary shots when the championship is on the line on Sunday night. If McIlroy can muster that excellence under pressure, he will put in place the final piece of the puzzle that has been his inability to capture the elusive fifth major.