Rory McIlroy - 4 Time Major Winner

First over simplification is to equate a choke with losing a tournament. In every event, there are wins and losses that go way beyond who takes the trophy at the end of the week. Trying to make a cut, a top 25, a top 10…. guys choke in ways that we never hear about. However, given that Rory was obviously in it for one thing only:

On 14, he missed a fairway. With a driver. With 180mph clubhead speed. At a US Open where fairways tend to be narrower than usual. It happens. Still made par.

Agree totally about 15. Great shot, wrong club. Selecting the wrong club doesnt constitute a choke for me. Name 1 other example in pro golf where a wrong club (a minor misclub; Im not accepting Van de Velde here) could be equated to a choke. Monty at Winged Foot was a mishit, not a misclub. Mickelson off 18 was the wrong club. Not a misclub. Big difference.

16. First putt was the issue. Have already explained why.

17. He made par. Wouldve taken it on the tee.

18. Not his best drive. Unpredictable 2nd, wasnt his best. Brilliant chip. Regardless, left himself with a 4 footer every bit as nasty as Dennis Wise and slightly pushed it.

Just dont see where the choke was. The only really questionable, nervy, needlessly overzealous shot he hit was his 1st putt on 16. Tee shots on 17 and 18 were slight pulls but hardly chokeworthy.

I mean, why limit ourselves to the last 5 holes if you want to equate minor errors with chokes? He scrambled like crazy through 2- 8 to avoid bogeys after his birdie on 1. And the 5th hole was a calamity even though most would agree his 2nd shot, while not perfectly struck, did not deserve to wind up where it did. Again, I just cant accept his performance over the final 4 holes as a choke. Couple of misjudgements, couple of v missable short putts and 1 bad misclub. All regrettably condensed within those aforementioned 4 holes.

For me, it doesnt compare with the 4 proper chokes I can recall in recent memory, which would be Goosen at Pinehurst in 05, Baddely at Oakmont in 07, Rory at Augusta in 2011 and Scott at Lytham in 2012. And Il give Badds a bit of credence because of his relative inexperience in the position, the difficulty of the course and his playing partner that Sunday (Tiger).

Ive already told you my understanding of what a choke is and given you clear examples. Mcilroy's doesnt fit my definition. He did not hit truly bad shots over and over again.

14 was a bad drive. But left was no worse than right. Would have been different if there was water or OB left but there wasnt. Not his best swing but he made sure to hit it in a place he knew he could recover from. And he did.

Lots of players missed the green on 17. I get the feeling you think it's a given that a pro will hit a turtle back green from 190 yards without breaking a sweat, even before you take into account the fact that its the US Open. Golf is hard.

I'd argue he had a decent chance for birdie on 16 after his drive. Half a chance after his 2nd even. Just hit a v poor first putt and made bogey.

And again, I hate to be pedantic but at that level, barely a hole goes by that a pro doesnt make a mistake. Ben Hogan said if he plays a round where he hits 3 perfect shots, hed be satisfied. The game is about misses. Rory hit a bad drive on 10. He also overhit the putt for birdie. But he made a 4. Was that hole a choke?

Jesus are you all still at this? 😂

+3 with 4 to play. Dont know why you regard his par or any par on the 14th as some kind of underachievement.

Nobody said he wasnt under pressure and that he didnt feel it. Wouldnt be human if he didnt. Regardless, based on my observations of his golf coming in and in comparison with sequences of performances in the past which I and others have regarded as legitimate 'chokes', subjective though that term may be, I cannot classify McIlroy's loss by that term.

Agree to disagree sounds good. As a final thought, I really do hope the '24 US Open is not the defining moment in the majors post 2014 for Rory. A generational talent, and well capable of winning more majors, allbeit this is going to be very difficult to absorb.

Again with the +3 the last 5! He was +2 the last 6. He was +1 the last 7. He was E par the last 9. On 10, he hit a bad drive, an average 3rd and bashed the putt. But because it went in, youre happy just to say he made 4 birdie, ergo played the hole perfectly.

Writing off his play over the last 4 as a choke displays no appreciation for the nuances of this game, particularly on a US Open layout and most particularly on this US Open layout.

Again, a choke is not something that happens exclusively in the last 3, 4, or 9 holes of a tournament. His 1st round at Portrush in 2019 was Rory's biggest choke since 2011 in my opinion. Rattling off the scores of 7 or certainly 6 guys who had no chance to win last Sunday by the time they hit the back 9 is hardly relevant as to what constitutes a choke.

Rory did not play fantastic or brilliant golf. A US Open does not allow you to play fantastic golf. He hit the odd brilliant shot certainly. He was, however, extremely defensive between holes 2 to 8 and bogied 5 in the middle of that stretch. He was blessed on 10 that his putt hit the hole but wasnt as fortunate on 16 and 18.

Saying that 4 pars wins him the tournament is reductive to say the least. He had no way of knowing that and even if he did, its like saying to Monty in 2006 in Winged Foot on the Friday, hey, just make 54 pars and you'll win by 6. Your notion that the world's best can just par or birdie a stretch of holes on command is flattering to them (Im sure), but also ridiculous. Stupid even, as you might say yourself.

But hey, agree to disagree.

Well three in a union, it's made up of States. It's not the same but it's like the EU in ways with a population of over 300m people.

Only the Masters is less than 100 years old and it's played on the same course every year so it'll never move.

So it's down to the US Open and PGA championships.

The US Open is run by the USGA so it's unlikely to ever move outside the USA.

The PGA championship is run by the PGA of America. It's professional golfers who run it, not the PGA tour. It's the only one that could move.

Again, never said pressure wasnt a factor.

You said it only manifested itself in one shot, the putt. Which means it wasn't a significant factor in any of his other poor shots.

Your point is inconsistent and makes no sense. It's illogical.

I just dont think his finish was poor enough to be considered a choke.

+3 in 5 holes pal is awful. Around 60 golfers did better than +3 in the closing stretch that day. How's is that not a poor enough finish considering the other 14 holes?

It's such a ridiculous take.

I never said it wasnt a poor finish. Dont know why youre so eager to put words in my mouth. Poor does not equal choke. Furthermore, since youve now written off a 7 time European number 1 and hall of famer a choker because of one bad finish in a major, Im more convinced than ever that you dont fully understand the concept. A few poor shots do not constitute a choke. If you can concede (and thats a big if!) that his loss in the 2011 Masters was worse than the way he lost the US Open than you can see there are differing levels of disappointing finishes. The former was a choke. The latter wasnt.

Ive been entirely consistent but can go over it again for your benefit: the first putt on 16 was by far the most inexplicably bad shot he hit, with the only feasible reasoning being that the pressure got to him. All of the other poor shots he hit can be explained either through respective shot difficulty or circumstance, without resorting to your favourite word, whether you like it or not.

By your logic, every golfer in the world is a choker because anybody who has played the game has lost a competition at some point in their life. Monty is a choker. Rory choker. Phil choker. Tiger (75 last round in 2009 USPGA) choker. Choke choke choke choke choke choke choke choke ad nauseum.

Yeah, Monty's 4 birdies in the last 4 holes at Riviera in the 1995 USPGA to make the playoff was a choke alright. By your 'logic'.

Oh, Im sorry, did you not refer to Monty as a 'choker in majors'? Oh, wait yes you did. And then you were presented with a clear example where Monty did, in fact, not choke at a major where he had a chance to win, thereby ridiculing your specific stance on that issue. But sure yeah, I put words in your mouth :D

The Monty example is perfectly relevant to Sunday's events and came about quite organically. Dont backtrack now just because he actually lost a major that he didnt throw away!

'Monty was a choker in majors' but not in all of them is not a coherent point of view. By definition, if he performed exceptionally well, even once, under the gun (and he did), then he was not a 'major choker'. For sure, his most disappointing loss was in a major, and I can understand why people refer to that double on 18 as a choke, certainly moreso than I can understand the same terminology being applied to Rory's finish. No shortage of relevant comparisons between both scenarios, whatever way you look at it. But when you label a player like Montgomerie a choker (before redefining him a major choker) then I think youve lost all degrees of perception. In a game where the very best lose nearly all the time, his win rate in world golf must be in the top 10pc of elite tour pros. Do you label all players a choker based on a bad finish to a tournament? Or even 2 or 3 bad finishes? Is Tiger a choker because he blew the 09 PGA? Or because he shot 81 at Muirfield in 2002? Or course not. Ridiculous logic.

Rory felt pressure, as all of them do. He had the winning of the event in his hands. It took a fantastic shot by BDC to beat him. I just dont see it as a choke. A poor finish yes, just not a choke.

I don't care about Monty. He is a choker or he's not a choker, I didn't follow his career closely enough. I'm going off everything I heard and read

Rory felt pressure, as all of them do.

But that only led to one bad shot, the putt according to you. Correct?

I understand your point. In most circumstances, the 1st putt wouldnt have been regarded as a lapse but I think in this instance, it was. It called for lag and he gave it a run. He was ahead, playing great golf.. there was simply no need to do anything other than cosying it up and if it got sick in the front of the hole then happy days. Again, I understand your perspective but believe the circumstances made that 1st effort inexcusable.

Monty's finish in 2006 was a choke. But people are too quick to focus on just the 2nd shot. That was a mishit for sure, maybe a misclub too. Didnt help that Vijay was arseing around in the left rough for 10mins looking for a ruling and 171 yards into a US Open green is no piece of cake but theres no doubt that in that instance, the pressure got to him. But that was just the beginning. He had no 3rd shot but allowed himself to be frazzled and panicked, thinking he had to hole the 45ftr for par instead of resetting as Harrington did so well in the 2007 Open and realising that a bogey was in all likelihood going to get him in a playoff. The pressure not only contributed to a poor swing, astonishingly poor given his rep as an iron player, but also a meltdown psychologically. I just dont see Rory's last few holes in the same degree of 'collapse': therefore if Monty choked, I have to find some other terminology to describe Rory's loss. Again, for me, one was way worse than the other.

I believe that if Rory had sank the putt on 16 he would have done the same on 18. The first bad putt was the cause of the second because it put the doubts in his mind.

Safe to say neither of us are for turning on this one. Understanding of the word choke is all semantics and subjectivity anyway; Ive taken up enough space in the thread trying to explain my interpretation.

I hope the next time McIlroy is in the mix on a major Sunday, hes leading by 10 or 11 and isnt in any danger of losing so we can avoid such pointless post mortems in the future.

Good golfing, y'all.

Yes, in your 2nd redefinition today, youve used the word 'mistake' instead. Good to see you can get through a paragraph without using the 'C' word. Kudos.

Ive answered all your questions. Because you dont like or agree with these answers, you keep asking the same questions. As is your right, I suppose.

'Are you trying to say Monty wasn't a choker'

'Monty was a choker in majors'

'Monty was a choker in majors doesn't mean he choked every single time.'

'Losing doesn't make you a choker. Just because you win in one tournament doesnt mean you can't choke in another. Equally, saying someone was a choker doesn't apply to every tournament they ever played.

Yeah, your definitions have been crystal clear and unwavering. You cant lie repeatedly and then accuse me of arguing in 'bad faith', whatever that means.

Im aware you think he choked. I have offered a different opinion and explained clearly and repeatedly why I have that opinion. Not sure what else I can do tbh.

An 'attempt' to discredit? :D

You lied when you said you hadnt redefined what it was to be a choker with regards to Colin Montgomerie. Trying to play the poor mouth by accusing me of being pedantic is pretty pathetic. If you say something overtly contradictory in a debate, youre going to get called out on it. Sorry.

Ive explained my opinion on every shot Rory hit coming in during this thread. Go back through and let me know where Ive not been clear enough.

I was going to leave but having too much fun to now. I expect a mod will end our nonsense soon enough (or you could simply be content to agree to disagree as you mooted several posts ago) but until then, I suppose Il carry on.

Your denial is beneath you. Probably.

Golf is hard. I dont have any other explanation. I dont need any other explanation. Players make mistakes all the time. Unfortunately, his happened at a particularly inopportune moment.

Yeah, we're both liars it seems. Now that we've established some common ground, you wanna call it a day?

i don't think you're a liar, i think you argue in bad faith.

Players make mistakes all the time.

No doubt. Why did he go from making ve y few mistakes to at least one mistake on every hole when he took the lead? Surely any reasonable person would say it's pressure.

You can stop replying whenever you want.

Scratch golfer. Have played and followed the game closely since 1997 and have a fairly good knowledge of major venues, winners and losers encompassing the decades since and well before that year. But I am also a despicable liar.

Huge McIlroy fan. But not to the point where I think I cant call him out for a bad shot or take on life and the world. In my opinion at least. Others are entitled to theirs of course.