When I woke up on Monday morning and saw Rory McIlroy was trending on Twitter I assumed he’d managed to win the US Open.
It wasn’t until I started reading the reports that I realised Wyndham Clark had come out on top.
The time difference meant it wasn’t a great major for television viewers in Britain but the major threw up lots of interesting storylines throughout the week, such as the course set-up, Rickie Fowler’s comeback, another near-miss for Rory and Wyndham Clark seizing his big chance.
I was amazed by how many people felt Rory had thrown it away. That view isn’t giving Wyndham the credit he deserves.
He was chasing his first major, in a situation that would have been completely alien to him, with massive names such as Rory, Rickie Fowler and Scottie Scheffler chasing him down.
He shot the lowest score after 72 holes under incredible pressure so it is wrong for the focus to purely be on Rory finishing runner-up.
I am a Rory fan and you would hope that he can take positives from being so close to a victory when he competes in next month’s Open at Royal Liverpool.
If Rory doesn’t win the Claret Jug then he will be going into 2024 with it being 10 years since he last won a major which is incredible.
He has put himself in the mix on many occasions during the past nine years and had two big opportunities recently at last year’s Open at St Andrews and at the US Open at the weekend.
He has won four majors but he could easily be on six right now.
Sunday will be another bit of scar tissue and the longer his wait for his fifth major goes on the harder it will be to cross that winning line when the next opportunity comes.
He is an outstanding player but he knows he will be judged on winning majors.
He must have been distracted over the past couple of years with everything that has been going on off the course with the emergence of LIV Golf and the recent announcement of an agreement between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund.
He has had to take on the role of spokesperson for the PGA Tour, while other big names haven’t been as vocal because they don’t want to get involved.
As a golfer, I play my best golf when things are simple off the course.
Rory is maybe starting to realise that.
But The Open at Hoylake could be coming at the perfect time for him.
It is a great Open venue for him – the one where he triumphed in 2014.
He can feed off those great memories.
I visited Hoylake for a couple of days in March and if you can fly the ball a long distance you can take a lot of the strategy out of play and have short irons into the greens.
On a lot of the holes you could draw a box in the middle of the fairway of the area where you can’t afford to hit it because there are bunkers everywhere. If you catch a bad bounce you will effectively lose a shot hacking out of a pot bunker.
But if you can drive the ball long and straight over those pot bunkers then it will give you a serious advantage on the rest of the field.
The greens will likely be firm and fast so being long off the tee and then high with your approach irons will be the best strategy.
This plays into Rory’s strengths so it would be no surprise to see him right in contention once again.
All-round game is impressive
As for Wyndham Clark, I think he will be a name that sticks around.
He also hits the ball a long way but what impressed me was his short game. Length is almost an integral part of success these days but he was also chipping really well and his putting statistics were very good.
If you can hit it far and have the short game to match then that is a great recipe for success.
He also has a strong mental game because he was under serious pressure down the stretch and he managed to close out the win.
I’m not sure he will get to four or five majors but he will likely be in this year’s Ryder Cup team and I expect him to go on and have a really good career.
He has been through plenty of adversity, particularly following the death of his mother, but that seems to have given him a real strength of character.
It will be fascinating to see how it plays out for him over the rest of the year and beyond.
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