Rory McIlroy. Luke Walker/Getty Pictures
Rory McIlroy’s closing spherical at June’s U.S. Open was such a catastrophe that it resulted in him lacking a textual content message from his hero.
After McIlroy, 35, missed quick putts on the sixteenth and 18th holes on the match, successfully handing the trophy to eventual winner Bryson DeChambeau, McIlroy acquired a textual content from Tiger Woods.
However there was an issue.
“Full disclosure, I modified my quantity two days after the U.S. Open, so I didn’t get it till he instructed me about it immediately,” McIlroy instructed The Guardian in a narrative revealed Monday, July 15. “I used to be like, ‘Oh, thanks very a lot.’ So I blanked Tiger Woods, which might be not a very good factor.”
McIlroy added, “If he hadn’t have waited that lengthy, I most likely would have gotten it. However I caught up with him earlier. It’s at all times good when your hero and the man that you just had in your bed room wall is reaching out and providing phrases of encouragement.”
Earlier than he modified his quantity, McIlroy stated he did obtain texts from the likes of Michael Jordan and Rafael Nadal.
“MJ was possibly the primary particular person to textual content me after I missed the putt on the 18th, however each of them acquired in contact very, in a short time,” the golfer famous. “They simply instructed me to maintain going. MJ jogged my memory of what number of game-winning pictures he missed. Very nice.”
McIlroy determined to alter his quantity after getting besieged by media requests after what the No. 2 golfer on the planet has known as “most likely the hardest day I’ve had in my almost 17 years as an expert golfer.”
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Rory McIlroy. Andrew Redington/Getty Pictures
“From the time I left Pinehurst to the time I walked via my entrance door on Sunday night time, I most likely acquired about 10 or 15 textual content messages from media members, and I used to be like, ‘It’s most likely time to get a brand new quantity,’” McIlroy defined. “Create a little bit of area.”
As for what Woods, 48, stated in his unanswered textual content message to McIlroy, the 15-time main champion offered some perception throughout his pre-tournament press convention at The Open Championship.
“We’ve all been there as champions. All of us lose,” Woods stated. “Sadly, it simply occurred, and the uncooked emotion of it, it’s nonetheless there, and it’s going to be there for, I’m certain, a while. The sooner he’s in a position to get again on a horse and get again into rivalry, like he did final week, the higher it’s for him.”
McIlroy will get that likelihood at this week’s 152nd Open Championship, which tees off at Scotland’s Royal Troon on Thursday, July 18.