However Rory McIlroy slept on Saturday night, his early Sunday afternoon was a waking nightmare.
After a third-round 66 that put him on the brink of history, two shots in the lead and a Masters win removed from the career Grand Slam, McIlroy had said all the right things. He would stay within himself in what was sure to be a nervy final round. He would remain inside a bubble of his own making as he played alongside Bryson DeChambeau, the man who’d torn his heart out at last year’s U.S. Open.
So much for the bubble. Just like that, it burst.
Tee off in the last pairing of the day, at 2:30 p.m. local time, McIlroy pushed his opening drive ever-so-slightly. Golf is a game of inches. Call it yards. The ball was just a few feet from finding the short grass. Instead, it settled in an awkward lie in a steep fairway bunker.
DeChambeau followed by hooking a 3-wood into the pine straw, but it left him with a punch-out opening to the green, a benign position compared to that of McIlroy, who had no choice but to gouge a lofted club out of the sand.
McIlroy plays briskly. But what happened next seemed to go by in a blur. From 70 yards, his third shot settled on the collar behind the pin. A tough par putt remained, which McIlroy, after backing off his initial address, raced past the cup. He was still outside DeChambeau, who had played a deft chip for his third.
For McIlroy, it all had the makings of a bad dream. But it was real. His bogey bid went begging, a horrifying 6 on the scorecard.
And then, in an eerie reprise of the steely up-and-down he’d made at Pinehurst to clinch the U.S. Open, DeChambeau rapped in his par.
One hole down, and McIlroy’s lead was gone.
It was still early. But you had to wonder: would McIlroy be able to answer the alarm?
