Sobel: What to Make of Rory McIlroy’s Sunday Slip-Up at the Arnold Palmer Invitational

ORLANDO, Fla. — Rory McIlroy trudged off the final green at Bay Hill Club & Lodge on Sunday afternoon, yet another title contention ripped from his increasingly pliable grasp, this one thwarted by some devilish combination of fate, destiny and a cold putter.

The newly uncrowned champion glad-handed some tournament officials, forced a smile, then entered the tunnel leading toward the scoring area and unleashed an audible, exasperated exhale.

It would be the last sign of frustration he’d allow.

Minutes later, McIlroy stood in front of the assembled media and answered all of the questions he already knew were coming.

About the full year now without a single tournament victory. About a growing trend of close calls that he hasn’t been able to finish. About burgeoning criticism due to a lack of clutch shots, a curious mutation for a player who once prided himself in execution during these situations.

“That’s the great thing about golf, you don’t have to wait too long to get back on the horse,” he immediately rationalized. “I’m happy with everything.”

He probably wasn’t and he definitely shouldn’t be.

The burning question, though, isn’t about whether the usually honest McIlroy was being totally candid in the moment. Instead, we should be asking if something really is broken — and if so, how he might fix it. Despite the trends, this isn’t as simple to answer as it may seem.

I’ve always been a firm believer that close losses, no matter how painful, are more positive experiences in the long-term than faraway results. McIlroy has now finished sixth-or-better in all five tournament starts this year. It’s impossible to argue that a quintet of finishes outside the top 20 would reap any greater optimism, even if such performances would have kept his psyche intact.

There exists a very fine line between title contentions and heartbreak, a line that every professional golfer has walked on a multitude of occasions.

If you insist that McIlroy is playing terrific golf, some of the best golf in the world so far, you’re not wrong. If you insist that he has considerably little to show for this, that his near-misses constitute more failure than success, you’re not wrong there, either.

The reality is, only time will determine whether his current stretch builds up enough scar tissue to steel him for more important tournament titles in impending months, or whether he’s somehow irrevocably broken, rendered in the short-term to serving an extended sentence as the world’s best player who never plays that way on Sunday afternoons.

“Look, it doesn’t matter whether it’s Thursday or Friday or Saturday or Sunday,” McIlroy insisted, as if he was trying to convince himself as much as everyone else. “I shot 72 on Thursday here, felt like I didn’t play that good. Felt like I played much better [in Sunday’s final round] than the 72 I shot on Thursday. So it doesn’t matter what day it is.”

He’s right, sort of. All of the shots count the same. A birdie on Thursday morning counteracts a bogey on Sunday afternoon. Shots don’t hold greater weight on the weekends. That much is true.

And yet, his entire thesis is clearly flawed.

Of course, Sundays mean more than Thursdays (or Fridays or Saturdays). Sundays are when they hand out those gleaming trophies, when everything is decided, when a player like Francesco Molinari decides to stomp on the throats of his fellow competitors and rescue victory from the jaws of defeat.

It would’ve been a fair question to ask Molinari, who posted a final-round 8-under 64 to erase a five-stroke deficit and win by two, whether it “matters what day it is.” Even better: It would’ve been fair to ask McIlroy himself whether it matters on those four Sundays he won major championships earlier in his career.

Maybe it would have been preferable to watch McIlroy punch the side of the scoring tent or break his putter over his knee or, more sensibly, speak with some passion and indignation about this latest in a growing trend of finishes. And maybe that happened later, away from the glare of the media and public, in a private moment when he didn’t need to add any spin control.

Instead, he continues to insist his current situation beats the alternative, which might be true, but also might not be the point at all.

“I would much rather be putting myself in position to have a chance to win,” he explained. “Yeah, my Sundays haven’t been what I would have liked, but I’m putting myself in that position, so good golf is good golf. I keep saying that, at the end of the day.”

He does keep saying that. It just remains to be seen whether he actually believes it.