What's going on with Rory McIlroy? How the Northern Irishman has been left searching for the 'missing piece of the puzzle' ahead of the US Open

Daily Mail​

4 hours ago

Amid the agony of missing the cut at the RBC Canadian Open, Rory McIlroy is jumping back on the horse as he looks ahead to another crunch week on the PGA Tour calendar.
But the Northern Irishman has a couple of things gnawing at him as he arrives in Pennsylvania for the 2025 US Open at the Oakmont Country Club.
On Wednesday, McIlroy appeared to admit that he was struggling for motivation following that fateful day at Augusta National in April.
It coincidentally comes as the three-time FedEx Cup champion is currently working his way through a rough patch of form, with his recent performances at Quail Hollow and TPC Toronto proving to be stark in contrast to his dominance at the beginning of the season.
'Of course it concerns me,' McIlroy said after finishing day two at nine-over par. 'You don't want to shoot high scores like the one I did today.'
Right now, it is McIlroy's driving that is proving to be the overriding worry, and as he admits, he is 'still searching for the missing piece of [the puzzle] from the tee'.
That became evident on the par four fifth hole on Friday. The 36-year-old sprayed his tee shot into the rough on the right of the fairway and then pulled his approach shot left, out of bounds. He would go on to card an eight on his way to his first missed cut since he missed out on playing the weekend at The Open last July.
Yes, the 2025 Masters Champion packs a punch with his driver. Yes, he sits second on the PGA Tour for strokes gained off the tee.
But finding fairways is something that McIlroy is seriously struggling with and that does not bode well considering the test he'll face this week.
Dubbed 'The Beast', the Oakmont Country Club is a course that is infamous among golfers as being one of the toughest in US Open rotation. You'll only have to track back as far as 2016 to when the US Open was last hosted at this venue to remember images of McIlroy hacking his way out of the penal rough that weaves its way around this behemoth of a golf course.
He would go on to miss the cut on that occasion too.
And as with any US Open week, videos are beginning to emerge on social media of players having their golf balls swallowed up by the deep green grass on this Pennsylvania track which proves an ominous omen for the the playing field this week.
'Obviously going to Oakmont, what you need to do more than anything else there is hit fairways,' McIlroy said on Friday.
He added: 'For me, when I get that part of the game clicking, then everything falls into place for me. Right now that isn't. Yeah, that's a concern going into next week.'
Finding the middle of the fairway will be crucial at this week's US Open venue, Oakmont, a course which notoriously boasts some of the most penal rough on the tour
This weekend, McIlroy struck 42 per cent of fairways at the Canadian Open - a tournament he has won twice previously. He has also slumped to 171st on the PGA Tour for his driving accuracy in 2025, with the Northern Irishman finding the fairways a meagre 49.40 per cent of the time.
It is a part of his game that McIlroy has had trouble with this year, noting the Northern Irishman was ranked 50th in the field for his driving accuracy at the Masters, hitting 62.50 per cent of fairways, despite going on to win the Green Jacket.
McIlroy was forced into swapping out his TaylorMade Qi10 driver right on the eve of the PGA Championship after his club was found to be non-conforming, with its face being too thin. He'd go on to finish T47 at Quail Hollow.
In the interim, McIlroy has been back to the drawing board and returned on Thursday with a 44in driver, hoping that would give him a little more control. But things didn't quite go to plan.
'I was saying to Harry going down the last this is the second time this year I've tried the new version, and it hasn't quite worked out for me. So I'd say I'll be testing quite a few drivers over the weekend,' he explained.
McIlroy is not one to shirk in the face of adversity.
Over the years, the Northern Irishman has battled issues in his swing, patched up difficulties in his marriage and fronted up to become the face of the PGA Tour in its still ongoing struggle with LIV Golf. That's all while he continues to maintain his status as one of the best golfers in the world.
Adversity is something that he's dealt with before, but alongside his driver issues he also appears to be facing a new challenge of reigniting that fire to win after finally ending his long and agonising wait to finally don the Green Jacket.
'I don't know if I'm chasing anything,' he explained last Wednesday. 'I would certainly say that the last few weeks I've had a couple weeks off, and going and grinding on the range for three or four hours every day is maybe a little tougher than it used to be.'
McIlroy flew back home to Northern Ireland with his wife Erica and daughter Poppy to spend time with his parents and friends after his win at Augusta. He also stopped off in London to check in on the new home he is building on the way and explained he's also had some time away from the course in recent weeks to savour and celebrate that victory.
But the rigours of the PGA Tour have meant he has had to quickly switch back to competing and is finding it tough to get back into the groove after pouring so much emotion and focus into that fateful weekend at Augusta National.
'You have this event in your life that you've worked towards and it happens, sometimes it's hard to find the motivation to get back on the horse and go again.'
'I think the last two weeks have been good for me just as a reset, just to sort of figure out where I'm at in my own head, what I want to do, where I want to play. Yeah, reset some goals.'
McIlroy has also faced criticisms in recent weeks over his decision to refuse to speak to the media between rounds - something that PGA Tour players have no obligation to do.
While The Golf Channel's Rex Hoggard has claimed that some within the PGA Tour are 'concerned' by McIlroy's recent media snubs, who can blame the Northern Irishman for wanting to skip interviews after a difficult day on the course?
But he is interestingly struggling to rekindle motivation to keep winning following his Masters victory
McIlroy opted not to appear for some interviews during the PGA Championship, and explained he was 'well within his rights to do so'. He also explained that the decision was partly down to him wanting to avoid questions around his non-conforming driver.
'I've been beating this drum for a long time,' he said. 'If they want to make it mandatory, that's fine, but in our rules it says that it's not, and until the day that that's maybe written into the regulations, you're going to have guys skip from time to time, and that's well within our rights.'
As we roll into the third major of the year, McIlroy is once again firmly in the spotlight for several reasons.
He is out to claim his second US Open title after winning in 2011, but all eyes will be eager to see what's in his bag, whether he can roll back to his form at the start of the year and showcase that he has rekindled his fire to keep winning in 2025.