Fuming Rory McIlroy blows US Open chances as he endures nightmare final round: ‘Just go home Rory, f****** hell’

Rory McIlroy failed by making another wedge three holes into his final round. Or to put it in his own words: ‘Just go home, Rory, goddamn hell.’

To be fair, he might have saved himself some of the stress had he decided to fire up the jet the evening before, when the US Open challenge was actually unraveling.

There’s no shame in falling to defeat at Shinnecock Hills when the wind picks up, but when McIlroy reflects on this week, he’ll focus on Saturday’s second-place back nine, falling from fourth at two to nowhere near the top three.

This capitulation rendered the fourth cycle largely meaningless and was evident in his closing compilation of 73, taking his total to six and finishing outside the top 30. If he had noticed Harry Maguire in the gallery, they might have shared a few stories about the plight of being a minor figure in American sporting events.

Analysis of this outing for McIlroy will be mixed. His driving improved greatly throughout the week, which bodes well for next month’s Birkdale Open, but just as one problem was solved, another appeared. His wedge game often let him down on Long Island, which is why he exploded in the third round when he came close from 160 yards into the fairway and rolled from the green to the sand.

It would be one of six in his final over, including a missed shot from inside three meters in the 14th. On remotely the calmest day of the week, the wind couldn’t be blamed this time, but the greens were cooking quickly and inconsistent from one surface to the next, much to Bob MacIntyre’s annoyance. He later admitted to ‘venting’ a rules official on lap 70, which left him seven points behind.

The Irish player finished the tournament six-over and outside the top 30

“I’m going to get infamous as soon as this situation comes up, but they put different amounts of water on each green,” MacIntyre said. ‘They have a different softness.

‘I got angry and thought I’d go and ask the question. I don’t normally do this, but I just thought, “You know what, I’ll ask him why.” Honestly, it gave me the answer I thought I would get. But I was relaxing a bit.’

Mcilroy said of his tournament: ‘I think when I look back on the whole week, I’ll definitely regret the ninth yesterday. I got myself down to two and then the wheels came off and I played a really bad back nine. That’s when I kicked myself out of the tournament. Frankly, I was really disappointed leaving the course last night.

‘You’re trying to come out here today on a positive note and muster the energy to put a good one out there, but there’s a couple of bogeys on the front nine, I was just trying to race to the 18th green.’

While Wyndham Clark struggled with the prospect of overcoming a six-stroke deficit in the final group, Tyrrell Hatton shot an impressive 67 to close one above. A bogey at the end may have had a delayed impact as it left Hatton with a loose grip on him to secure a top-10 finish and a place in next year’s field.

He said: ‘It was definitely a more enjoyable experience than the first three days.

‘I was happy to go out and play a pretty good round. Frankly, the last hole hurts a bit. This was disappointing.

‘All I can hope for now is that it stays in the top 10 and I have a guaranteed place next year.’

Meanwhile, Joaquin Niemann also finished the same score at par, clearly easing the results of taking 11 points on the sixth hole of the first round; that score included a two-stroke penalty for throwing his bat into a tantrum over fire ants. If it wasn’t for that cut on the par four, he might have won the tournament.