Open eyes on Rory McIlroy as he looks to end decade-long wait for major win

Nine years and 11 months. Some 3,629 days. Around 87,100 hours.

Whichever way you look at it, by the time the 152st Open Championship gets under way at Royal Troon the length of time since Rory McIlroy’s last major victory is truly remarkable.

Since McIlroy followed his Open triumph at Royal Liverpool in 2014 by winning the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational and US PGA Championship in his next two starts, 38 majors have been staged and the 35-year-old Northern Irishman has won none of them, with only the 2015 Open missed through injury.

Brooks Koepka has racked up all five of his victories in that spell, Jordan Spieth three, Justin Thomas, Jon Rahm, Collin Morikawa, Dustin Johnson, Scottie Scheffler and Bryson DeChambeau two each, while 20 different players have tasted victory once, including a 50-year-old Phil Mickelson and an injury-ravaged Tiger Woods.

McIlroy has had to settle for commendable consistency, recording 21 top-10s, but had never had the title within his grasp with just a handful of holes to play in the manner that he did in the US Open at Pinehurst this summer.

A two-shot lead was admittedly brief as Bryson DeChambeau, playing in the group behind, matched McIlroy’s birdie on the 13th, but it is what happened on the 16th and 18th which will, in the words of Sir Nick Faldo on Sky Sports, “haunt Rory for the rest of his life”.

McIlroy missed from two feet and six inches for par on the 16th – his first failure all season from inside three feet – and then from three feet and nine inches on the last after a well-judged chip from short of the green.

Rory McIlroy's major drought continues

McIlroy hasn't won a major since the 2014 PGA Championship (37 appearances) ❌ pic.twitter.com/SsCUnkxUK5

— Action Network