Rory McIlroy shows again why he’s so great but so frustrating in early exit from U.S. Open

Rory McIlroy is one of the rare talents in golf that can grind away on the driving range past 7 p.m. in the middle of a major championship and then come out the next morning and look like he might match Johnny Miller’s Oakmont record on one nine and bomb below the cut line on the next nine.

The last Saturday at a major championship, Rory McIlroy spent a blustery afternoon at Augusta National just trying to hold on, while his contemporary, Jordan Spieth, galloped past him and into firm control of the lead. The two played in the final pairing at the top of the leaderboard in what was the dream scenario we all wanted.

This week at the U.S. Open started with the dream scenario that Rory should have wanted. An Oakmont course that we’re watching Dustin Johnson overpower with his length took on a bunch of rain, setting up the kind of soft conditions in which Rory thrives best. That’s how he won his U.S. Open at Congressional, carving up a softer course with his length and precision tee-to-green. Instead of that Congressional-esque stripe show, we got a sloppy and inefficient two rounds capped off by an inexcusable double bogey on his 36th hole that ejected him from the championship. It was the second straight major championship Saturday that has to have him feeling a little shaken.

McIlroy is unique in so many ways, and there is no one in the game quite like him. We’re now coming up on almost two years since his last major championship. At the end of that 2014 summer, it seemed no one could really challenge his place as the lead dog in the game. Sure, there would be contemporaries who would beat him, but he’d still be the singular force and the one everyone else was trying to dethrone. He probably felt it too.

That position lasted less than a year, the intervening season bringing us Jordan Spieth and Jason Day, who each took Rory’s world No. 1 ranking at different times, jumped up a level, and passed him. It happened right in front of him at Augusta, where he even admitted to the media that, “I turned around on, after 15, I said, how the hell is [Spieth] 2‑under par today?” After this frustrating Saturday, McIlroy didn’t even give the press the time to express that kind of candid frustration. He issued a “no comment” just minutes after tossing his neon highlighter hat to the crowd, which was maybe the kind of comment all we really needed.

Rory admitted something was wrong with his swing this week. “Honestly, I’ve been struggling with my swing, even the practice rounds a little bit,” he said on Friday morning. “I don’t need to swing perfect, but I just need to be able to play one shot and know that I know where it’s going to start and I know where it’s going to finish.”

So there he was, grinding it out on the range after dinnertime in the middle of a major. The conventional wisdom is that if you’re on the range searching for something in the week leading up to the first round, you’re already screwed. This was after the first round. Granted, it was a day that Rory only played a handful of holes in the morning. But it was still disconcerting to see him there with swing coach Michael Bannon working through most of his bag, studying film of his motion, and in a lather late on Friday evening. He worked on drivers, low stingers, cuts, wedges, and waggled repeatedly.

Rory posted up near the far end of the range close to a hospitality tent. When he started, the sun was beating down on him, but the shadows from the tent slowly crept across the range as he finished up around 7:10 p.m. At one point, the only people left plugging away were McIlroy and the great Romain Wattel. The random Wattel sighting is something you would not think twice about. The four-time major winner, someone many still believe has the most ability on the planet, trying to fix his swing late on a Friday night of a major was not something you expected to see.

After that session, McIlroy walked out onto the 10th tee less than 12 hours later and started to make his move back into the U.S. Open. Whatever he was searching for on the range he seemed to have found, stuffing it close on his first hole for an opening birdie. The ball striking was damn near a privilege to watch through that opening stretch, which included four birdies in his first seven holes and a dramatic jump up the leaderboard. The day started with McIlroy flirting with the cut line but that seemed like such a remote danger so soon into his second round.

His fourth and final birdie came at the par-3 16th (his 7th hole of the day) on a beautiful stinging cut that came right back to the flag on the 225-yard par-3. Rory made a last-second club change and then fired the rocket off the tee that looked left at the start but cut just as Rory had wanted -- the kind of predictability he said he needed before that range session. And keeping with the theme of the morning, he capitalized on the brilliant ball-striking by pouring in the birdie putt. The crowd popped and provided the biggest roar of this very early part of another interminable day at Oakmont.

That would be it, though. That theme would go up in flames in a hurry, largely thanks to the putter. McIlroy’s tee shot at the 16th was perfect, but his ball on the 17th is one I’ll never forget and got you thinking this might be the Rory round that has the fans running from all over the grounds to try and catch up and watch potential history, like the gallery scramble on Sunday last year at Chambers Bay.

The 17th is a drivable par-4, 318 yards but directly up a steep, steep hill. There are all sorts of danger and jail around the green that force a player to just grab an iron and lay up. Rory was feeling it, however, and went right for a narrow chute at the front of the green. Standing at the top of the hill next to the green, Rory swung away and the ball just took off like a fighter jet doing some sudden dramatic climb at a ridiculous angle. It reached its apex and joined us at the top of the hill, then dropped perfectly in the narrow opening on the front of the green. The crowd cheered, and then watched Rickie Fowler and Danny Willett try the same thing, only to put it short in one of the deepest bunkers on the course and miles short in the thick rough, respectively.

It was happening -- Rory was on, and when he has it all working, there’s nothing more thrilling to watch in golf right now. Nothing. You were convinced that this was surely the best golfer on the planet while wondering why he wasn’t up there next to Dustin on the leaderboard. Then he three-putted, posting a par that made that unforgettable (for me!) tee shot irrelevant.

The ball striking would remain for much of his round, but the putter decided to wander off and abandon him. This was the kind of frustrating round we’ve seen several times from McIlroy. He’ll go out in 40 at Augusta on Friday morning, and then play the remaining 45 holes at 15-under to backdoor his way into the top 10. The shifts are so sudden and leave you feeling like so much is wasted.

A very Rory McIlroy thing is to play a round that easily could have been in the low-to-mid 60s but instead leaves you on the wrong side of the cut line. Few can post the old 31-40 over-par round like he can and we got that today. He hit fantastic shots into the 1st and 2nd greens (his 10th and 11th holes), only to miss birdie tries on the edge of the cup. While the missed birdie putts were frustrating, the end came at the third hole, which he four-putted. It was the fifth four-putt of his career at a major. Three of these putts came from about three feet as he pinballed it back and forth.

His caddie, JP Fitzgerald, stood way off to the side of the green looking off on the Western Pennsylvania landscape as it all came undone. This may have been an instance where Jordan Spieth would insist his caddie, Michael Greller, jump in and calm him down or give him a read before he hit yet another putt (it also might be why Spieth’s rounds drag on for well over five hours). It just seemed like Rory needed a timeout there but he didn’t call JP in from the far left side of the green and just plowed ahead and on his way out of the tournament.

The back nine was a slow squandering of a round that had been so promising. But at least he was on the right side of the cut line. Then it went from frustrating to ignominious, however, on the final hole. The predictability with the ball striking was gone, and Rory drove one right into one of Oakmont’s deadly fairway bunkers. He’d leave it in there on his first cut and then pop it out sideways into the fairway on his way to a double bogey.

Somehow, this day ended with McIlroy not even having a putt on his 18th hole to make the cut. The mess resulted in his first missed cut at a major since 2013, which seems so long ago given the highs and lows of the intervening two seasons. He’d toss away the loud hat, blow off the press, and get the hell out of here.