The DeChambeau-McIlroy duel in the pines rekindled the aura of Pinehurst at its best

Six minutes after Bryson DeChambeau’s winning putt dropped, Rory McIlroy had the courtesy Lexus packed and spun the wheels in the dust on his way out of Pinehurst to … anywhere. Anywhere but here.

Where there is uncommon joy there is uncommon pain, and the late Sunday drama on No. 2, where DeChambeau and McIlroy competed to see who could throw the U.S. Open away, left McIlroy as despondent as DeChambeau was jubilant.

It was a credit to No. 2 and the lingering genius of Donald Ross that emotions ran so high and swung so wildly. The unique geography of the old layout meant that even in different groups, DeChambeau and McIlroy were linked by proximity, battling within earshot, now forever linked by this duel in the pines.

They battled with the wiregrass, DeChambeau in particular, and they struggled with the crusty late-afternoon greens, McIlroy putting his way to three bogeys on the final four holes to re-open the door for DeChambeau, who spent the day hacking out of the brush but made the short par putt on 18 of almost the exact length that McIlroy had just missed.

“Being able to fight against a great like that is pretty special,” DeChambeau said. “For him to miss that putt, I’d never wish it on anybody. It just happened to play out that way.”

If it wasn’t exquisite shot-making, it was exquisite torture. They staggered home, two giants of the game, one desperately trying to recast his image, the other desperately trying to end a decade-long major drought that clearly weighed far too heavy on his head over the final hour in the golden twilight. Tony Finau and Patrick Cantlay both finished within two strokes, but they played bit parts over the final holes, as DeChambeau and McIlroy traded the lead back and forth.

But DeChambeau eventually hacked his way out of the sand and the scrub to hold off McIlroy who — stop me if you’ve heard this one before — came up a shot short. DeChambeau, ever the tinkerer, swapped out his driver head on the practice range and spent most of the day in the right native areas, then hit it left under a magnolia tree in the shadow of the NBC broadcast tower on 18, needing to make par to win after McIlroy’s tragic miss left the crowd stunned into near-silence.

The whole range of possibilities was open there. Par for the win. Bogey for a playoff. Double to throw it away, which at that point would hardly have been out of character for either. But DeChambeau was able to hack the ball into the bunker short of the green and play it to just under 4 feet from there. You’d say it was over then, but at that point, after everything that had just transpired, you really needed to see the putt go down to be sure. It did.

That meant that unlike 2005 and unlike 2014, and very much like 1999, Pinehurst got not only the finishing battle it deserved, and the tale that will be told until this tournament returns in 2029, and long after, of DeChambeau surviving and McIlroy collapsing, but the memorable moments that will inevitably and eventually define this U.S. Open.

DeChambeau’s bunker shot and ensuing putt will be replayed over and over again, as will his double-fist-pumping celebration that alluded to, without mimicking, the late Payne Stewart’s extended fist and kicked-out leg, 25 years after another Southern Methodist product — huge day for the ACC — won a major on that green, with par putt to that hole location.

Long after McIlroy made his immediate exit — not only unusual for him, but perhaps unprecedented for a second-place finisher at a major — and after DeChambeau had posed with the trophy next to his unraked pitch mark in the bunker in front of the 18th green, it sat next to him as he recapped his round with his Stewart-style flat cap perched on top of it. DeChambeau didn’t wear it Sunday. But it was with him, hanging from his bag, and in his mind, there was symmetry to it.

Maybe. Maybe not. But unquestionably, Pinehurst, and everyone who walked through the sand and pine straw and dust this week, has been waiting all these years for something like Stewart’s narrow victory over Phil Mickelson to happen again, to recapture that feeling. That magic. Without it, would we even be back here this week?

The past two Opens were financial bonanzas and logistical successes, but the challenge and aura of the course stood out more than anything that actually happened on it. (Michelle Wie, in the second half of 2014’s two Opens, deserves an asterisk there.) This, however, was golf at its best, perhaps not in execution, but amid pressure so stifling that the two stars atop the leaderboard both wilted, one just slightly less than the other.

The course demanded everything from both of them, every club, every shot, almost on the 18th hole Sunday alone. McIlroy skipped town. DeChambeau etched his name into Pinehurst history. You could feel what it meant to both, because it felt that way to everyone who watched. Finally.

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