Rory McIlroy’s evolution on full display at Shinnecock Hills

SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. – A two-minute-and-32-second lowlight reel of Rory McIlroy's first round of the 2018 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills exists on YouTube. There’s no commentary or graphics, so at any moment, you’re not quite sure what McIlroy is making. You just know it is bad.

The video is a relic of a different era, one that was at its peak back then. McIlroy shot 80 that day, which assured he wouldn’t be around for the weekend. It was his third consecutive missed cut at the U.S. Open and the continuation of a worrying trend that McIlroy’s game was unfit for the toughest tests. He won the most un-U.S. Open U.S. Open in 2011, outrunning the field at a soft Congressional Country Club, and had amassed only one top-10 at the event since then.

“I was just blown away by the wind,” McIlroy said eight years ago at Shinnecock.

McIlroy’s first-round 69 this time around was a reminder of how far that narrative has shifted.

He remains stuck on just one U.S. Open title, but the pendulum has swung. Gone are the critiques of McIlroy’s toughness and inability to adapt to hard golf courses. It was believed then that McIlroy couldn’t win without soft conditions. He needed a birdie-fest to have a chance. McIlroy later admitted as much.

If there is an overarching theme in this resurgence of his major performances, it’s this: McIlroy has completely rebuilt himself as a player, and it shows most at the U.S. Open. He’s been inside the top-10 through 18 holes in four of the last five U.S. Opens. He’s now second all-time in U.S. Open rounds in the 60s, with 23, trailing only Jack Nicklaus (29). Fifteen of McIlroy’s 23 rounds in the 60s have come since his missed cut at Shinnecock in 2018.

“It hasn't looked as if I've went and done a rebuild of my game, but it's felt like it in terms of the way I approach the game and the value I place on certain shots and certain skills within the game,” McIlroy said Thursday.

McIlroy recalled going to the Travelers Championship the following week in 2018 and feeling an overwhelming sense of comfort there that he didn’t feel at Shinnecock. That was when it hit him. He had it backwards.

“I should be in my comfort zone at Shinnecock and not here,” he said.

In other words, if McIlroy fancied himself a major championship player, he needed to elevate specific aspects of his game that are rewarded on the biggest stage: distance control, flighting the ball, short game and putting. He journaled about it ahead of 2019. He wrote then that he would build his game for the majors and to excel and embrace “the toughest tests we have.” He needed to become a proper player. He mastered the three-quarter wedge shot, rededicated himself to improving on and around the greens and worked diligently on a resilient mindset.

Those skills were put to the test as he collected heartbreak. McIlroy was within reach of the 2023 U.S. Open that Wyndham Clark won and was in the driver’s seat in the closing stages of the 2024 U.S. Open that Bryson DeChambeau won, both of which would have ended a decade-long major drought. The dam finally broke at Augusta National in 2025 and by the time his career Grand Slam hangover ended, he was putting the green jacket back on himself earlier this year.

Will the U.S. Open be McIlroy’s next major conquest?

There would be something poetic about doing it at Shinnecock, the venue that spurred the wholesale change. His start on Thursday was emblematic of his growth. He opted for iron off the tee at the 10th, content to lay back and ensure he played his approach from the fairway. He hit a wind-cheater 6-iron into the perilously perched green and stopped it pin high, then two-putted for a stress-free par. At the 11th, McIlroy found the flat part of the skinniest green on the property, hitting the smart shot on a hole that makes many look dumb. Then he rolled in the birdie putt. A bonus, but one earned by his sensible approach. He did the same at the 12th, lashing his ball out of the rough and letting it trundle on the green, OK to take his medicine and a 26-footer. One good putt later, and McIlroy was suddenly 2-under. He gave the shots back at the 13th and 16th, but his even-par 35 on the opening nine was seven shots better than in 2018.

McIlroy made another birdie and an eagle on his inward nine before coughing up a couple shots to close. That dropped him out of the lead, but he was OK with that. An 11-shot improvement from last time was good enough for Thursday.

“It was a day to really just keep yourself in the tournament and not shoot yourself out of it, which is exactly what I did eight years ago here,” McIlroy said.