McIlroy looks back at misread putt on 15th

GOLF:WHERE DO you go when you want to get away from it all? In Rory McIlroy's case, coming on the back of his near-miss in the US PGA, a Mediterranean cruise is the panacea.

And the 21-year-old Ulsterman is taking an away-from-it-all break this week before resuming play at the Barclays Championship next week as he starts his quest for the FedEx Cup end-of-season run of tournaments that will take him up to the Tour Championship, the week before the Ryder Cup.

McIlroy, who finished just one stroke outside of a place in the play-off at Whistling Straits, has moved to 21st in the US Tour’s FedEx Cup standings and to 11th on the European Tour’s Race to Dubai list – but the big prize of a maiden major title evaded his clutches on this occasion, despite giving himself a number of chances down the stretch where a bogey on the 15th and a failure to birdie any of the closing three holes meant he came up a shot shy of joining Martin Kaymer and Bubba Watson in the shoot-out.

For sure, McIlroy – who also finished third in last month’s British Open at St Andrews – again demonstrated he has the game to someday claim one of these prized titles. Still, despite his strong challenge, there was an understandable sense of disappointment too that he had come so close without delivering on this occasion.

“I thought I handled my game and handled myself well. I’m sure I could look back and see where I could have made up one or two shots, but it is another learning week for me and one I could look at the positives from and move on,” said McIlroy, who admitted the crucial putt on that run-in came at the par 4 15th where he had a five-footer for par. “I read it straight, and it went left to right. It just sort of went more left to right than I thought . . . the margins are so small in this game.

“The putt on 15 will be the one I will look back on, but it was great to be there (in the mix) and I look forward to being part of many more major battles in the future.”

He added: “It was just one of those days when I felt I hit good putts and nothing went in. I am pleased, as I played nicely all week and I just needed to find one more shot in there any of the four days. It’s disappointing. But it’s the first time I’ve been in contention in the last round of a major, it was a new experience for me and will stand me in good stead for the future.”

Meanwhile, Pádraig Harrington, who, despite missing the cut, remains just one place outside of an automatic place on the Ryder Cup European points list just €1,247 behind Paul Casey – also has a week’s break before, like McIlroy, resuming his playing schedule at the Barclays.

Harrington is 53rd in the FedEx Cup standings, which gets him into the Barclays, the Deutsche Bank and the BMW but he will need to move up the rankings to make the Tour Championship which is confined to the top 30.