The world No. 3 player’s frustrations with Rory McIlroy’s 2024 have grown, ranging from severe heartbreak to losing out on an Olympic medal, and his drivers are bearing the worst of it.
In many ways, Rory McIlroy’s final round snap of his driver at the BMW Championship over the weekend epitomized his year on the tour. The Northern Irishman looked frustrated.
When McIlroy bent down to pick up his tee on Sunday, it looked as though he snapped his driver in frustration, as if throwing his driver furiously into the nearby water after missing his tee shot wide on the 17th hole on Friday wasn’t bad enough. It happened after McIlroy mishit the par four, causing his ball to land on the bank slightly above a creek.
McIlroy didn’t try to take the driver’s place. “If a conforming club is damaged during a round or while play is stopped under Rule 5.7a, the player may repair it or replace it with another club, except in cases of abuse,” according to Rule 4.1a(2).
Nevertheless, the 35-year-old astonishingly capitalized on losing a club and having to stand barefoot in the creek as he miraculously hit his approach shot into the green and saved par. He made the turn at one over, 14 shots behind the lead, though it wasn’t enough to get him back into the hunt.
As McIlroy’s frustrations in 2024 persisted, U.S. Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley went on to win the BMW Championship. At the U.S. Open, McIlroy came incredibly close to winning his fifth major championship, but he missed two putts in the final moments, allowing Bryson DeChambeau to win.
In 2024, he represented Ireland in the Olympic Games in Paris, where he finished fifth without winning any medals. He also missed the cut at The Open. The world No. 3 hasn’t won a major in ten years, so he was hoping that winning gold at the Olympics would ease his pain.
Just before the Games, McIlroy declared, “It would be the achievement of my year.” “I haven’t won one of the Big Four in ten years, as is widely known. It would most likely be the largest in my career over the past ten years, if not the biggest.
“This is a question I get asked a lot: where does an Olympic medal fit into the overall scheme of my career accomplishments? I probably won’t be able to respond to it until it’s all said and done,” he continued.
“I believe that golf will grow in popularity as it remains an Olympic sport for a longer duration. We have four gold-standard events each year, but this one will eventually rank right up there with them.
In four years, McIlroy will have another opportunity when the Olympics move to America, where he currently resides. But instead of competing on the East Coast, where he lives in Florida, he will be competing on the West Coast.
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