Rory McIlroy’s Open hopes fade as his short game splutters in the rain

Rory McIlroy said he still has a ‘a lot of optimism going into the rest of the year’ despite failing to win the Open. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian

Nine years; 3,288 days. That’s the length of time which has now elapsed since Rory McIlroy won a major championship. The omens had been good coming into Hoylake, the expectation as high as ever, but in the end a final round of 68 left him seven shots behind the winner, Brian Harman.

There were moments, early in rounds three and four, where it looked as if McIlroy might make a charge. But in the end any promise sputtered out in the rain and seasoned Rory watchers will have seen this movie before. In a way it’s like the Godfather 3, only inverted. Just as you think he’s in, they pull him back out. The “they” in this instance, however, refers not to the mob but the greens and McIlroy’s be-hoodooed putter.