Rory McIlroy once again arrived to his third major of the year fashionably late on Tuesday morning, giving himself 36 hours to prepare to play one of the trickiest golf courses in the world, Pinehurst No. 2. It’s been 10 years since McIlroy last saw it, and a lot has changed from the mature waste areas to the greens being converted to Bermudagrass.
But McIlroy arrives at his 16th career U.S. Open feeling good about his chances to add his name to the trophy for a second time.
After a string of missed U.S. Open cuts from 2016-18, he’s posted five consecutive top-10 finishes, trending closer every year – T9, T8, T7, T5 and solo second last year a shot behind Wyndham Clark.
There’s only one place to improve this year. “I've been on a pretty good run of U.S.
Open performances over the last few years,” McIlroy said Tuesday. “Obviously had a close call at LACC last year, obviously Wyndham just pipping me to the post there. But I feel like I really struggled at U.
S. Open setups, 2016, '17, '18 in particular. I sort of had a bit of a I guess come-to-Jesus moment after that, tried to really figure out why that was.
Then my performances from 2019 and after that have been really, really good.” That transformation and “reframing” of his mindest came from learning to accept the kind of challenge a U.S.
Open represents as typically the most grueling major championship test. It didn’t always jibe with McIlroy’s preferred playing style – a soggy Congressional in 2011.
