…I’d say he is less likely to win one again now than he was a week ago
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The comments are so clearly a coping mechanism, as well as being a reflection of the current soft soap PR landscape we exist in. But they do not reflect the inescapably grim reality of what happened. They do not help Rory McIlroy and they do not reflect the reality of sport.
I wonder somewhere is there an Australian equivalent of Greg Allen or Paul McGinley or Laura Davies who claimed after the 1996 US Masters “Greg won’t be disappointed. There are so many positives for him from this week. He had a very good tournament and showed that it’s only a matter of time before he wins at Augusta.”
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He’s got a video on the Indo this morning along the same lines. Texts from Lowry, texts from Harrington about Poor aul Rory. Sickening shite.
He’ll win the Farmers Classic in Alaska or somewhere next week.
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Rory doesnt need excuses lads. He needs the truth. As fans, we need to be honest here.
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Very few sportsmen can relate to the mental turmoil.
Kimmage went nuts at your man Murph on second captains during a Christmas special.
It was something like has Liv golf lessoned your enjoyment of golf Paul and he just starts roaring I don’t want to fucking here about it repeatedly.
Just like winning losing becomes a habit too. Losing in heartbreaking fashion especially becomes habitual. All the stars were aligning nicely for McIlroy. I’d love to know what was going through his head when he took driver on 18 or the penultimate seconds before the last putt. Sport is cruel but champions find a way. I referenced Brady. A world championship Snooker final in the crucible is as nerve jangling as it gets. Selby who wouldnt have as much talent as many of his peers always seemed to come good in the clutch which is even more impressive when you consider his struggles with mental health. Maybe the big moments for Selby are numbed by his struggles in one way. Maybe true champions have a personality disorder where they can process the big moments into the routine and mundane. I’m thinking Cluxton too. Standing in the hill back in 2011 and watching Cluxton nonchantly walking up to take the free like Andy Dufresne in a prison yard without a care in the world and caressing it over the black spot is incomprehensible to mere mortals. Once you start thinking big picture, legacy, breakthroughs its curtains.
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Chokers find a way.
I’d love it - love it - if there was a back catalogue of Greg Allen radio reflections on Charlie Redmond’s penalties in championship matches between 1988 and 1994, full of lauding Charlie for the incremental improvements he was making towards the “goal” of finally scoring a goal from a penalty in a big championship match.
Penalty 1: July 31st, 1988 - a timid sidefooted attempt to level the Leinster final against Meath with the last kick of the match. Redmond gets under the ball and it sails harmlessly over the bar amid a monsoon of toilet rolls being thrown onto the pitch from the Canal End.
Greg: “A lesson, a hard lesson for Charlie Redmond. But that’s sport, and he’s young and have no doubt he will use that lesson to come back stronger.”
Penalty 2: September 20th, 1992 - a sidefooted attempt again into the Canal End after 10 minutes of the All-Ireland final. The ball sails harmlessly wide and Dublin go on to lose to All-Ireland final virgins Donegal in limp fashion.
Greg: “Disappointment again for Charlie Redmond, but it’s not all doom and gloom for the Erin’s Isle club man. He used the lesson of that missed penalty against Meath in 1988 and this time he was successful in keeping the ball down, but it slipped agonisingly wide right of the hole, I mean goal. But he’s getting ever closer to that aim of scoring a crucial penalty in a big match and he’ll take a lot of encouragement out of today. A Leinster title, an All-Ireland appearance and a likely All-Star nomination no small reward for his year’s work.”
Penalty 3: July 2nd, 1994 - another sidefooted attempt against Kildare, in the second half of a match Dublin are top in but have not yet put away. This time it goes in, just, bobbling in low down off the post at the Hill 16 end.
Greg: “Charlie Redmond showed today that he can do it when it matters, he can score a penalty in a championship match, and that win here at the RBC Canadian Open, I mean Croke Park against Kildare, will silence the doubters who believed he didn’t have the mental strength necessary to finish the job on a big day. A pressure penalty coming down the stretch and Redmond showed he was in his element as he nailed it to ensure a statement victory for Dublin and he can now go into the major challenges to come with real optimism of landing that first major success for Dublin in a decade. That was genuine mental strength from Redmond today and you could see the difference that working with sports psychologist Tony the binman has made to his game.”
Penalty 4: September 18th, 1994 - all the years of heartache, of toil, of scars, they all come down to this. Seven minutes left of the All-Ireland final against Down, who are out on their feet. Dublin are coming hard, a goal will level the scores and surely Dublin will go on to win from there. All the lessons, the hard lessons, will now be used to ensure a successful outcome. Charlie timidly sidefoots the ball straight at goalkeeper Neil Collins who parries it out, and Johnny Barr blasts the rebound wide Kevin Kilbane style. Dublin lose.
Greg: “It was heartbreak again for Charlie Redmond on the big day but he’ll take so many positives from his year’s work. He put himself in position down the stretch but saw a penalty slide agonisingly straight at the goalkeeper. But he keeps putting himself in position to win and as long as he does that it’s only a matter of time before he nails one of these penalties in a big match. The great players have all missed penalties and it says nothing about a supposed lack of mental strength that Charlie fell so narrowly short this time. He’s getting closer and closer to his aim and just look at the way he used the lessons of those previous missed penalties today - unlike against Meath in 1988 he kept this one low and unlike against Donegal in 1992 he got this one firmly on target, right at the centre of the goal, he stuck to the process, and showing remarkable mental strength he placed absolute trust in his timid sidefooting technique that has served him so well over the years, he was just so unlucky that Neil Collins happened to read his run up and make an incredible save by standing almost stationary in the goal and letting the ball hit him. It was no reflection on Redmond at all that he just happened to be edged out by a great opponent and have no doubt he will be back and he will score a penalty in a major match in Croke Park.”
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I vaguely remember Keith Barr taking the odd one too and not having much luck either. Might have missed one against Meath in that series of games back in the early 90s.
Keith Barr took one with about six or seven minutes left in the final game of the Meath quadrilogy in 1991. He leathered it low and wide with Mick Lyons shadowing his run up. “It’s a goal, no wide.”
Paul Bealin missed one with the last kick against Meath in 1997, it was an identical situation to Redmond against Meath in 1988, again at the Canal End, a goal would have meant a replay. He leathered it off the crossbar and out.
Even Paul Clarke missed a penalty against Louth in Navan in 1995. I’m sure Paddy Christie missed one against Laois in 1999 too.
Dublin and penalties were a complete disaster zone when I was a young fella. Dublin would always miss them. The opposition would always score theirs. Jack O’Shea buried his in 1985. John Cleary of Cork got two in 1989. Bang bang. Brian Stafford scored in 1991. Clare had one saved in 1992, and the ball came straight back to the taker Gerry Killeen who buried it. Donnacha O’Connor of Cork nailed his in 2010. As did James O’Donoghue in 2013.
I scarcely remember Dublin being given any penalty in any game of note from 1999 up until around 2015. Any since, they’ve scored.
I’d love to know what penalty conversion rate was back then. It was a lot more difficult to score from the 13 yard line. I remember Bealins one vividly. He just leathered it down the middle. I had thought Barr had toebogged that one but you’re right it was Bealin.
McConville missed one against Kerry in 02. Declan O Keeffe was almost on top of him as he was taking it. Didn’t have to wait too long to find the net after that. He scored another penalty against Donegal in 03 I think to send them through to All Ulster AI final with Tyrone.
Ok lads dungeon the bogball. This is about Rory.
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Definitely a lot more missed penalties before the penalty spot was moved in. Lots in All-Ireland finals. Mike Sheehy 1982. Jack O’Shea 1986. Kevin McCabe 1986. Redmond x 2. Trevor Giles x 2. Oisin McConville 2002.
Mayo still managed to put one wide from closer in though.
Rory McIlroy choked at the US Open and he has nobody to blame but himself
This wasn’t about Bryson DeChambeau’s bunker shot or McIlroy’s perennially put-upon caddie - it was about the scrambled brain that led to two short putts being missed when everything was on the line
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Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland reacts after finishing the 18th hole during the final round of the US Open at Pinehurst Resort on Sunday night. Photograph: Jared C Tilton/Getty Images
Mon Jun 17 2024 - 10:02
This one is going to linger. It has to. In the days and weeks and surely even years to come, Rory McIlroy is going to feel the sting of what happened in those 23 minutes on Sunday night at Pinehurst. Extending his 10-year purgatory without a major is one thing. Finding a completely new way to come up short is another. Especially when there’s nobody to blame but himself.
Missing two putts inside four feet in any round is bad for any pro golfer. Doing it in the final three holes to lose a US Open by a shot means everything else melts away. Every other factor in the result becomes irrelevant.
Bryson DeChambeau’s bunker shot for all time? Couldn’t have mattered less had McIlroy sunk the two putts. Those curious club/shot selections down the stretch? A wry footnote at worst, something to laugh about through the puffed cheeks of victory. Backing off shots in the closing holes? Understandable nerves, actually quite sweet in a way – as long as the putts go down.
But they didn’t.
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This wasn’t Harry Diamond’s fault. McIlroy’s perennially picked-upon caddie got his man to the 70th green of a US Open with a one-shot lead and a 30-inch putt for par. Nothing a bagman can do in that scenario but presume his boss will see it out. It wasn’t down to a Cam Smith-style run of birdies from an opponent on a hot streak either – DeChambeau had his worst score of the week and played his last five holes in one over par.
No, this one is entirely on McIlroy. He choked, plain and simple. He did everything right until he got within sight of the finish line and then he did everything wrong. His putter, which had been such a laser-guided weapon all week and particularly on Sunday, turned into a jelly snake right at the moment of highest tension and sharpest consequence. This can only have been due to a mental meltdown.
Rory McIlroy is consoled by his caddie Harry Diamond after making a bogey on the 18th hole during the final round. Photograph: Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images
As the leading golf statto Justin Ray pointed out, McIlroy had faced 496 putts inside three feet all season standing on the 16th green and had made all 496 of them. He had holed them in every circumstance, from early Thursday mornings to late Sunday evenings and all imaginable scenarios in between. Of the countless ways for his challenge to fall apart, every analyst of his game would have got a long way down the list before landing on his short putting.
The days of people watching him through their fingers as he stood over important putts were long gone, we thought. At Pinehurst on Sunday, he was having one of the great putting days of his career. Even with the two tiddlers missed down the stretch, the cold numbers say he still ranked eighth in the field for strokes gained putting in the final round.
His technique was sound, his speed was on the money – so many of his putts died in the hole, a clear indication that he and Diamond had worked out the puzzle of Pinehurst’s baked, humpbacked greens across the week. He was like a Vegas magician who had built his illusion step-by-step and layer-by-layer. He had the audience sitting forward in their seats agog, ready for the last big flourish of the reveal.
Except now, when he reached into his top hat, there was no rabbit to pull out. The easiest part of the trick had become the most difficult. All the lights were on him, all the trumpets were tuned and ready. All the scrapes and calluses of a decade’s toil in the majors were about to get their payoff. And the weight of it crushed him.
Rory McIlroy misses that putt on the 18th of the final round, that cost him so dear. Photograph: David Cannon/Getty Images
His brain got scrambled to the extent that he couldn’t complete the simplest, hardest task in golf. There’s a very good reason they call it choking – swallowing is the most natural thing in the world when you don’t have to think about it. But when something gets stuck, it happens suddenly and without warning your instinct is sheer panic. That’s who McIlroy became, having been the complete opposite all week.
The psychodrama will play out over the next while, as it must. It will be fascinating to see how he handles it. He’s down to play the Travellers Championship this week. Will he turn up? If he does, will he do a press conference? Will he talk about choking, that great unspeakable bogeyman taboo of golf?
He should. If nothing else, it would take the sting out of the phrase for everyone. Choking happens to all golfers at one stage or another, yet none of them ever cop to it. For a crowd of lads who are typically among the dweebier end of the sporting population, there’s a drearily macho refusal to ever admit to mental fragility. McIlroy could change all that, if he liked.
It would be understandable if he didn’t feel that was a priority this week, obviously. But it might do him some good at the same time. He has to find some way of moving on from this.
How he goes about it will keep the rest of us agog for a while yet.
At least we have a guaranteed medal* in the Olympics.
*not gold.
Does Malachy know the stat about him being due to miss a short putt?
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Enda McNulty on the News At One now dissecting the psychology of Rory.
Deep work.