Nine years without a major: McIlroy looks to Hoylake after coming up short at US Open

Rory McIlroy's countdown is on to the Open Championship, where he'll try again to end a nine-year major title drought after a runner-up finish to Wyndham Clark at the US Open.

READ | American Clark holds off McIlroy to capture maiden major at US Open

Far from discouraged after coming up one shot short at Los Angeles Country Club on Sunday, McIlroy said that countdown had begun "three minutes ago".

He added: "I'll play Travelers next week, I'll play the Scottish Open, but I'm focused on making sure that I'm ready to go for Liverpool."

McIlroy didn't need a lot of time to process disappointment, since he believed there was little he could have done differently or better.

"The golf course was playing really tricky, and obviously the scores in the final few groups reflected that," said McIlroy after the top three finishers all carded final rounds of even par 70.

"All in all, I played a solid round of golf. That one wedge shot on 14, missed birdie putt on eight, really apart from that, I did everything else the way I wanted to."

That wedge at the par-five 14th ended up embedded in the muddy face of a bunker and even after a free drop he wound up with a bogey.

"I feel like I didn't time the shot perfectly," McIlroy said.

The bogey ended a run of a dozen straight pars. That streak followed his lone birdie at the first, where he had a 30-foot look at eagle.

"I thought I did really well at executing my game plan, hitting a lot of fairways, hitting a lot of greens, again, what you should do at a US Open.

"If anything, I felt like over the last two days when the greens started to get quite crispy that my speed control was off a little bit, and I think that's the reason I didn't hole a lot of putts.

"I don't think I was hitting bad putts, just