'I think it won the battle': Rory McIlroy admits US Open conditions defeated him

[p][b]"I think it won the battle over me at this point," [/b][a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/player/mcilroy-rory/djwanksN/"]McIlroy[/a] said after firing his second three-over 73 of the weekend to finish on six-over 286.[/p][p]World number two McIlroy, a six-time major winner from Northern Ireland, made five bogeys on Saturday's back nine and four more on the front nine in Sunday's final round.[/p][p][b]"Looking back on the entire week, I'll obviously rue the back nine yesterday," [/b]he said. [b]"I got myself to two-under par for the tournament after nine.[/b][/p][p][b]"Then the wheels came off and played a really bad back nine. I sort of shot myself out of the tournament then. Obviously was really disappointed coming away from the course last night."[/b][/p][embed guid="cecb88d2-4277-4be0-9d79-15c68e68ec75" url="https://x.com/BBCSPORTNI/status/2068804932606509368" social-type="twitter" /][p]Three bogeys in his first five holes Sunday had McIlroy racing for the exits as best he could.[/p][p][b]"You try to come out here today positive and you try to muster up the energy to put a good one in there, but a couple of bogeys on the front nine, I was just trying to race my way to the 18th green," [/b]McIlroy admitted.[/p][p]He will be making his way to Europe and home next for July's British Open.[/p][p][b]"It's my favorite time of the year to go back home and play, play the Open and I get to spend a bit of time back there,"[/b] McIlroy said.[/p][p][b]"This was not too dissimilar to an Open Championship in terms of how the golf course started to play over the weekend, but a bit of links golf over the next couple weeks will be nice."[/b][/p]