It was the final round of the 150th Open Championship at the home of golf, St. Andrews, and Rory McIlroy walked to the first tee with a four-shot lead. By the end of the day, he was walking off the 18th green in third place, watching Cam Smith hoist the Claret Jug. McIlroy didn’t implode or have a catastrophic collapse, he shot a bogey-free 70. So, what exactly happened? This article breaks down the subtle yet significant factors behind Rory's Sunday, turning his performance into powerful lessons you can apply to your own golf game.
The stage could not have been more perfect. Rory McIlroy, one of the game’s most beloved figures, held a share of the 54-hole lead with Viktor Hovland at the 150th playing of The Open at St. Andrews. The whole of the golf world was buzzing with anticipation. He was the heavy favorite, playing brilliant golf all week, and a historic victory seemed destined. He was playing controlled, powerful golf, and all he needed was one more solid round to claim the one that an entire nation, and he himself, wanted most.
He got a solid round. A 2-under 70 with 18 greens hit in regulation is a round most professional golfers would take every single Sunday. But on this Sunday, solid wasn’t enough. Across the Old Course, another player was authoring a different story. Cameron Smith from Australia was playing a once-in-a-lifetime round of golf, and his performance put a unique and immense pressure on Rory that is difficult to understand until you break it down.
The final stat line for Rory's Sunday is almost unbelievable in a loss: 16 pars and 2 birdies for a final score of 70. He hit all 18 greens in regulation. Think about that for a second. On every single hole, from tee to green, he did his job perfectly, giving himself a putt for birdie. For amateur golfers, hitting 18 greens is the stuff of dreams. For Rory on this day, it became a source of immense frustration.
The story of the round was told on the greens. Rory's two-putts weren't bad by normal standards, he didn't have a single three-putt. But they lacked the conviction needed to win a Major. Time and time again, his birdie putts would slide by the edge or die just inches short of the cup. While he avoided mistakes, he was unable to apply any pressure or pull away from the chasing pack. He played defensively on the putting surface, almost as if he was trying not to lose rather than actively trying to win.
So many golfers focus entirely on avoiding the dreaded three-putt. We practice lagging the ball to a three-foot circle, satisfied with a tap-in for par. But what Rory's round showed us is that championship-level golf - and your own personal best rounds - require more. You need the ability to convert birdie chances.
Spending all your focus on two-putting can lead to a passive, defensive mindset on the greens. You stop seeing the line to the back of the cup and instead see the 'safe' area around it. This is a subtle but enormous mental shift. Your goal changes from "make this" to "don't mess this up." While it saves you from blow-ups, it also prevents you from going low and closing out a great round.
While Rory was grinding out pars, Cameron Smith was putting on one of the greatest back-nine performances in major championship history. He reeled off five consecutive birdies from the 10th to the 14th hole, shooting a blistering 30 to close out his round. This wasn't just a challenge, it was an onslaught.
This external pressure completely changed the dynamic of the final round. For Rory, every conservative two-putt par felt like he was losing ground. The thunderous roars for Smith echoing across the course are impossible to ignore. They can seep into your concentration, creating a sense of urgency and forcing you out of your game plan. Suddenly, a safe shot to the middle of the green doesn’t feel good enough. A 20-foot birdie putt feels like a must-make.
This is where mental resilience is tested. The temptation is to start forcing things - to take a more aggressive line, fire at a tucked pin, or jam a putt at the hole. But forcing it often leads to tactical errors or a less-than-committed swing. Rory, to his credit, stuck to his game plan. But the plan that felt so comfortable at the start of the day was no longer sufficient to combat Smith's masterpiece.
How many times has this happened to you in a match against a friend or a club competition? You're playing steady golf, and suddenly your opponent starts making everything. They chip in, drain a 40-footer, and hit a lucky shot out of the trees. It’s deflating. Your solid pars start to feel like bogeys, and you lose focus on your own process.
The takeaway here is the immense difficulty, yet importance, of staying in your own lane. You can't control what your opponent does. All you can control is your routine, your target, and your commitment to the shot in front of you. Rory didn't "fail" in his mental process, but the pressure ultimately kept his putter "cold." He couldn't find that next gear because the context of the entire tournament had shifted beneath his feet.
From a coaching perspective, what happens when a great putter can't get the ball to drop? It's often not a major mechanical flaw but a subtle breakdown in feel and trust, brought on by pressure.
The greens at St. Andrews are massive, with subtle humps and hollows that are almost invisible. On greens like these, speed is infinitely more important than line. A putt with perfect speed has a much wider margin for error on the line, it can catch a piece of the hole and drop. A putt with poor speed will miss even on a perfect line. Rory’s speed control, normally a strength, was just a fraction off all day. He never looked truly comfortable and was consistently 'dying' the ball at the hole, a strategy that leaves no room for error.
When you start to miss a few putts, doubt creeps in. You begin guiding the putter instead of releasing it freely. A common sign of tentative putting is deceleration through impact. Instead of a smooth, accelerating stroke, the putter slows down as it approaches the ball. This is almost always a subconscious act driven by fear. The result? Putts that come up consistently short or drift weakly offline, exactly as Rory's did on Sunday.
To improve your own speed control and build trust, stop focusing on the hole. Go to a practice green and try this:
Rory McIlroy’s Sunday at the 150th Open was not a classic choke, it was a stall. He didn’t make costly mistakes, but his inability to make a crucial putt when it mattered most, combined with Cameron Smith’s epic charge, was the story. It serves as a powerful reminder that in golf, playing solid sometimes isn't enough, winning often requires that extra gear of courage and conviction on the greens.
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