Rory McIlroy will forever regret being a sore loser

In the annals of gut-wrenching final rounds at majors, little compares to the horror of Greg Norman’s closing 78 at the 1996 Masters, which condemned him to a five-shot loss to Nick Faldo in a tournament he had led by six. And yet amid all the grisly, gripping theatre of that day – the two detours to Rae’s Creek, the defining image of the Australian on his back in despair on the 15th green – one detail sometimes overlooked was his grace in defeat. He embraced his conqueror, he stayed to speak to reporters, and he owned his frailties under pressure.

“I screwed up,” Norman said. “It’s all on me. I know that, but losing the Masters is not the end of the world. I let this one get away, but I still have a pretty good life. I’ll wake up tomorrow still breathing, I hope. All these hiccups, they must be for a reason. It’s a test – I just don’t know what the test is yet.” For a figure perceived both before and since as irredeemably brash, it was a beautiful capturing of what it meant to let the most coveted prize slip away. It conveyed an admirable sense of perspective, too, a reminder that beyond the narrative of one man’s world caving in, he could console himself the next morning with his yachts, his fortune and his health.

Quite the contrast, you have to say, with the scenes in North Carolina on Sunday night. Rory McIlroy, having tweaked two three-footers in his last three holes to relinquish the US Open title, hightailed it out of Pinehurst so fast that you could hear the wheelspin from his courtesy car. There was no cursory remark to the media, no runner’s-up appearance at the trophy ceremony, and, most damningly, no word of congratulations to the champion, Bryson DeChambeau. No wonder the Californian was, as reported by Telegraph Sport, nonplussed by the snub. Regardless of the statement he released close to 24 hours later, McIlroy’s exit was unforgivably petulant in a game as bound by codes of honour as golf.

It is not presumptuous to suggest that Jack Nicklaus, whose counsel McIlroy has often sought in trying to end his 10-year major drought, would be unimpressed by this behaviour. While Nicklaus won 18 majors, he also finished second in 19 others, handling the dejection each time with impeccable dignity. Indeed, one of the abiding Nicklaus memories is of his “Duel in the Sun” with Tom Watson in 1977 at Turnberry, where, despite his great rival edging him out at the last after a ferocious battle, the pair walked off with their arms around each other’s shoulders.

To Nicklaus, McIlroy’s peevish, get-out-of Dodge display would have been unconscionable. Having made it a principle never to short-change his public, he once reflected: “My father said, ‘Make ’em feel like you are happy for them, even if you don’t mean it.’” It was for this reason that he became celebrated not just as golf’s finest winner, but also as its finest loser. McIlroy, for all his disarming candour when the mood takes him, could not lay claim to the same billing. Not when his first instinct after shattering disappointment is to flee the scene.

He did the same after last year’s Masters, when, disgusted with himself at missing the cut, he shot out of Magnolia Lane without a word. Nobody doubts how deeply these agonies cut for McIlroy, who was so racked with self-reproach at that Augusta crash-and-burn that he cancelled his next scheduled appearance at Hilton Head. But the awkward truth is that champions reveal as much about themselves in heartbreak as they do in glory. And on this front, McIlroy is falling short, showing an unflattering side to his character as soon as the wheels fall off.

There is so much to admire about McIlroy when he is not performing these flounces. He is intensely empathetic, honest to a fault, and shows a curiosity about life beyond golf that far extends that of his peers. When I met him the morning after the Brexit vote, for example, the first subject he wanted to discuss was Nigel Farage. But he has also positioned himself over the past two years as the moral conscience of his sport, throwing particular shade on Norman’s role as frontman for the Saudi-backed LIV breakaway. “The guy who’s spearheading that tour has 20 wins on the PGA Tour,” he said, after securing his 21st at the 2022 Canadian Open. “I wanted to get one ahead of him, and I did.”

Say what you like about Norman – and McIlroy has, many times – but at least the Australian showed on that Sunday evening 28 years ago how to accept a defeat with decency and style. McIlroy, by ignoring DeChambeau and scrambling a private jet back to Florida within minutes, exhibited neither of these qualities. He looked less like golf’s outstanding ambassador than a cranky man-child swept up in his own melodrama.