Rory McIlroy last week at the Scottish Open. Getty Images At the High Line , a lovely public park on the west side of New York City built on an old elevated rail line, you see things. The remnants of the train tracks, for sure.

Art. Buildings. Rory McIlroy .

Yep. A few weeks ago, he was out among the masses. He’d just finished runner-up at the U.

S. Open . Agonizingly.

He bogeyed three of his final four holes at Pinehurst . He lost by a shot. He needed to get away.

To recombobulate. To make sense of how the hell he’d fallen short — again — of major win No. 5.

McIlroy went to NYC. He visited the park, too. “Went to Manhattan, which was nice,” he said last week.

“It was nice to sort of blend in with the city a little bit. I walked around. I walked the High Line a couple of times.

I made a few phone calls. Sort of was alone with my thoughts for a couple days, which was good. I had some good chats with people close to me, and as you start to think about not just Sunday at Pinehurst but the whole way throughout the week, there was a couple of things that I noticed that I wanted to try to work on over the last few weeks coming into here, and obviously next week at Troon .

“They were hard, but at the same time, as each day went by, it became easier to focus on the positives and then to think about the future instead of what had just happened.” Anyone recognize him at the High Line? A few folks, he said. “But I had my AirPods in, sort of — you know, but it was ni.