TROON, Scotland – Following his crushing defeat at the US Open, Rory McIlroy received messages of support from Michael Jordan and Rafael Nadal.
Tiger Woods also weighed in.
Woods revealed Tuesday that he texted McIlroy about a week after McIlroy blew a two-shot lead with five holes to play at Pinehurst. Most devastating for McIlroy was his 2-foot putt on the 16th hole.He hole, followed by a 4-foot miss on the final green that left him one shot behind Bryson DeChambeau.
“I just sent him a nice text,” Woods said, adding that he told him: “I know this is a tough time. We’ve all been there as champions. We all lose. Unfortunately, it just happened, and the raw emotion of that is still there, and I’m sure it will be there for some time. The quicker he can get back to the top and compete again, like he did last week, the better it will be for him.”
McIlroy, in his first start since Pinehurst, was tied for fourth at the Scottish Open. Earlier that week, McIlroy told reporters he began to feel “uncomfortable” with his short par putt on the 16th, saying he was perhaps too aware of DeChambeau’s looming position.
Woods also said he’d been in that situation before with the tournament on the line.
“Nervous, shaky, awkward — yeah, all that,” Woods said. “That’s why you love it. That’s why we practice, to prepare for that awkward situation and bury it.”
Handling that situation, Woods said, is the result of years, if not decades, of practice.
“I work hard at this and I have done it all my life,” he said. “I have worked hard to get here.”
Though the circumstances were different, Woods said the toughest loss of his career came at the 2009 PGA Championship. It remains the only time he lost a major when leading after 54 holes, and he said it took him a while to get over the sting of the loss because of the number of careless errors he made in the middle of the final round. At the height of his skills, Woods shot 75 that day at Hazeltine to lose by three to Y.E. Yang in what was one of the biggest upsets in the history of the game.
“You can’t afford to make the mistakes I made and expect to win tournaments,” Woods said. “I know that’s not the way it is.”
A month later, McIlroy now does so, without a doubt.