The Open 2014: Rory McIlroy left in grim battle after Royal Troon woe

It was a day when every player had to find something within themselves to help them stay in the fight.

Some managed it, plenty didn’t. Many stellar names among them. When McIlroy dug deep he found nothing.

The 18th summed it up, a miserable day in microcosm, a round that saw him turn up in the interview area in the aftermath on the understanding that he would answer three questions and three questions only.

“Yeah, difficult day,” he said. An understatement.

On 18, he drove it into the bunker on the left then took his medicine when splashing back to the fairway.

McIlroy stood over his approach. He studied the wind, the rain and the remaining distance between him and the pin.

He reached into his back pocket to retrieve his yardage book but in the process his scorecard blew away on the Ayrshire breeze, his caddie Harry Diamond scampering forward to collect it.

It was a fitting end. When not just your round but your scorecard is getting away from you then it’s never good. And this was never good for the Northern Irishman.

“I felt like I did OK for the first part of the round and then missed the green at the Postage Stamp there and left it in [the bunker] and made a double,” he said.

“But still, I felt like I was in reasonable enough shape being a couple over through nine, thinking that I could maybe get those couple shots back, try to shoot even par, something like that.”