Of clutch shots and lip-outs

The year’s third major proved to be a roller coaster. From the people in contention, to the course, the 2024 US Open lived up to everyone’s expectation and more.

Bryson DeChambeau began the day at -7, three strokes ahead of Matthieu Pavon, Rory McIlroy and Patrick Cantlay, who were tied at -4.

Right out of the gates, McIlroy drained a lengthy putt for birdie and reduced Bryson’s lead to two. DeChambeau blinked first, with a bogey on 4 after a poor first putt from off the green. Lead down to one.

Rory on hole 5 was in prime position with 236 to the green of the par 5.

He hit his iron approach on the correct part of the green, 30 feet short and rolling towards the hole, initially. It seemed like an easy birdie for McIlroy to tie the lead.

But Pinehurst’s greens are like upturned saucers, if not bowls. Instead of having a 20-foot eagle putt, McIlroy’s seemingly perfect approach kept rolling left and back down, finally settling in a depression on the natural area.

His next shot ended up in the bunker and despite a good putt, settled for bogey. While breaks, good and bad are part of the game, the 5th hole seemed downright nasty.

Instead of trailing by one with an upcoming eagle putt, McIlroy left the 5th trailing by 2.

Like most US Opens, this year’s edition feels like a battle of attrition.

Everyone gets mentally and emotionally drained by bad breaks, unfair bounces and whoever keeps calmest wins. Pars are good. Birdies are rare. And bogeys sneak up in seemingly pedestrian holes.

Ultimately, he who sinks the putts and scrambles best, wins. That’s always the case in majors, more so in US Opens.

McIlroy’s misfortunes on the 5th were eventually replaced with bombs on the greens. Starting on the 9th, he made a medium length putt for birdie to gain some ground on DeChambeau.

Long birdie putts on the 10th and 12th, both from over 15 feet away, put McIlroy at the top. Another birdie on the driveable 13th put McIlroy at -8, two shots clear of DeChambeau.

DeChambeau was by no means rolling over. He kept giving himself chances at birdies but just couldn’t convert.

After a bogey at the 4th, he bounced back with a birdie at the par-5 5th. On a seemingly sure bogey on the 8th, he drained an all-important par putt to keep himself a shot clear.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t keep up with McIlroy’s four-birdie stretch from the 9th to the 13th. After DeChambeau’s bogey on 12, he trailed McIlroy by two after his birdie on the reachable par 4 13th.

But DeChambeau’s length was put to good use and he also birdied 13, moving him just one shot from McIlroy.

It’s a shame that McIlroy and DeChambeau weren’t in the same flight. It would’ve been a spectacle seeing them battle it out side by side.

But McIlroy’s pairing with Patrick Cantlay had its own draw. It seems like the two never liked each other and after an intense Ryder Cup moment between McIlroy and Cantlay’s caddie, Joe LaCava, being in the penultimate flight still had its own drama.

With a slim lead, McIlroy had his work cut out coming in. His tee shot on the par-3 15th sailed past the green and nestled among the wire grass.

A difficult pitch later and a bogey brought him back into a tie with DeChambeau who was watching everything unfold while waiting on the 15th tee.

Pinehurst is brutal, no question. While the usual defenses like water hazards and thick rough are absent, the diabolical greens more than make up for it. A yard offline, a couple yards too strong or short, too high or too low a ball flight and your ball will get splat off the greens and into the bunkers or natural areas where lies are down to pure luck.

Truth be told, I was planning to sleep through the front nine of the final round.

The leaders were to tee off at 2:30 a.m. and I set my alarm at 4:30 a.m., thinking they would just be reaching the turn by then.

But an episode of leg cramps at 2 a.m. after a long day of being on my feet woke me up just as McIlroy birdied the first hole. Who can go back to sleep after that? I’m glad I decided to stay up for all the action.

Pinehurst is a true test not only of ball striking, putting and short game, but most of all, it tests patience and the ability to bounce back.

Everyone in the field will get bad breaks from good shots. How players deal with the breaks under immense pressure spelled the difference.

Up to the very end, McIlroy was tested by the course. His birdies early in the back nine were erased by bogeys on 15 and 16, the last after missing a three-foot putt for par.

After four days of intense pressure, great shots and bad breaks, it came down to the last hole.

McIlroy and DeChambeau, tied at -6. After a bad drive and a punch up the fairway, McIlroy had a pretty straightforward up and down to finish at -6.

Unfortunately, after a good pitch, McIlroy missed another three-footer for par. Lucky for him, DeChambeau was in his own spot of bother.

After also driving left of the fairway on 18, DeChambeau had no full swing at the ball, with tree branches in his backswing and a root in the way of his impact area.

All he could do was punch out and hope to make an up and down from the fairway. But he didn’t just play out to the fairway. He tried to get too close to the green and hit it into a bunker 55 yards away.

Now, long bunker shots are some of the hardest shots in golf. Under immense pressure and after a less than stellar round (DeChambeau was +1 for the day), DeChambeau hit the shot of his life: A perfectly executed bunker shot nestled the ball five feet away for the win and his second US Open.

After 10 years of waiting and many near misses, this will probably be McIlroy’s most painful loss.

He was almost perfect. McIlroy put himself in contention, gained ground on the leader and at the 13th hole, had a 2-shot lead.

But for all that work, it was the short putts that did McIlroy put in. All the long drives, all the birdies and all the patience went up in smoke after missing from short range late in the round.

Bogeys on 15,16 and 18 the last two from three feet, gifted DeChambeau with his second US Open.

It was McIlroy’s day to shine. He hadn’t won a major since 2014. This was his US Open — until it wasn’t.

That’s golf, that’s life.

On the last green both McIlroy and DeChambeau had par-saving putts from a few feet away. The big difference was McIlroy had a sidehill, downhill putt while DeChambeau left his approach short and had an uphill putt. This will probably go down as one of the most heartbreaking major losses ever. I can think of just a few which were worse.

At a course where greens are near impossible, staying below the hole proved vital.

As always though, the eventual champion deserves all the credit.

In this year’s US Open, DeChambeau didn’t get rattled when he lost the lead. He didn’t blink when he got bad breaks. Most importantly, he got up and down from a bunker 55 yards away under immense pressure.

DeChambeau won the US Open more than McIlroy lost it.