Gut-punch defeats - Rory McIlroy seeks an end to such heartbreak in 2025

It's easy to be complacent about the level of Irish achievement in worldwide professional golf these days given ten major championship victories by Irish players over the last 17 years, so 2024 seemed to pass with a relatively 'ho-hum’ scale of appreciation.

In truth though, it came tantalisingly close to being one of the great years in Irish golf history.

There was Rory McIlroy’s US Open near-miss tale at Pinehurst where a two-shot lead on the back nine evaporated with three bogies in the last four holes leaving him one short of a play-off. Shane Lowry led the Open at Royal Troon after seven holes of round three and was a 12-foot putt away from shooting the lowest major championship 18-hole score in history at the USPGA Championship in which he was right in contention deep into Sunday afternoon.

On the credit side, there were four tournament wins in the year for McIlroy (one of them at the Zurich Classic shared with Lowry) but his season was also characterised by too many agonising experiences.

The US Open was the most stark of those but he was also on the receiving end of three other 18th green sucker punches - in Dubai in January and at both the Amgen Irish Open at Royal County Down and BMW Championship at Wentworth in September.

It was still a good but not a great year for McIlroy. He himself rated it in the B category and that seems about right given his high standards of ‘A grade’ campaigns in years past.

Four major championship victories between 2011 and 2014; three Fedex Cup successes in 2016, 2019 and 2022 along with 122 weeks at World No 1 since 2012 sets a high bar.

He achieved nothing on that scale in 2024 but four victories and abundant consistency kept him in the top three of the world rankings and was at least