A legendary US Open changed the career trajectories of 2 superstars

The last 12 months had it all – crazy winning streaks, big new champions, a major weekly arrest (!) and more. With 2025 on the horizon, our writers are looking at the most memorable moments from 2024.

no. 15 – Charley Hull goes viral | no. 14 – LIV, CEO of the LPGA say goodbye | no. 13 – The Solheim Cup parking fiasco | no. 12 – Open Phoenix Chaos | no. 11 – Hall of Fame Revival of Lydia Ko | no. 10 – PGA Tour/Saudi PIF merger deadlock | No. 9 – Keegan Bradley named Ryder Cup captain | no. 8 – Lexi Thompson left | No. 7 – Xander Schauffele’s progress | no. 6 – AK’s return to golf | No. 5 – The dominance of Nelly Korda | no. 4 – Bryson DeChambeau’s star turn | no. 3 – Scheffler’s surprising season

Greatest Golf Moments of 2024 No. 2: Rory and Bryson’s US Open epic

Sunday’s big magic in golf’s major championships is not history, but OPPORTUNITIES.

It’s tempting to believe the opposite is true. History, after all, is what gives meaning to our great championships. That’s why a green jacket at the Masters resonates more than a buggy jacket at the RBC Heritage, why a Claret Jug is more valuable than a FedEx Cup, and why Tiger vs. Jack it’s a legitimate talking point rather than an idle theory. Chance, on the other hand, fills the historical records of every golf tournament since the beginning of time, filling the pages of the history books with small print placed beneath the bold-faced names of the winners.

But the story is not why there is magic in the air on Sunday at the major. History is our accounting e magic, our way of indexing it for future reference. Magic is what comes before him.

Magic is a feeling of weightlessness, like a roller coaster going down an incline. It’s a cloud of static electricity, building silently but visibly in the air like a late summer storm. It’s something instinctive, gut-wrenching, coming from the same primal energies that power the cosmos. On major championship Sundays, the magic is the moment-before-the-moment. We know the story is coming soon, but we’re still hazy on its details when? AND HOW AND for whom?

That feeling of waiting, of knowing and not knowing, of the interweaving of the forces of fate and free will? This is it magical. And on Sunday at the US Open last June, it swept over Pinehurst like a tidal wave.

It’s hard to remember how CLOSED we were in another story. Maybe a few millionths on the X and Y axes. Maybe less. But as Rory McIlroy stormed to the 14th tee with ball in hand, our since-forgotten story was as certain as it could be: the streak was over. Rory McIlroy was once again a major champion.

We thought the story had already unfolded for us. Four birdies in five holes on the curve of a golf course harder than granite – Correctly the sort of Rory charge on Sunday that had gone off like a match on a pond in a dozen or more major championships over the past decade. A one-shot lead with three to play, no safe holes for birdie. McIlroy had seized the opportunity, now he could distribute his tried-and-true playbook with the same level and make history.

The unraveling began quickly. A ripe tee shot on the par-3 15th, a club that bounced high and well over the green. A boy. Another ripe tee shot on the 16th, a safe iron shot. A birdie putt to 2.5 feet, leaving one no doubt for par to maintain a one-shot lead. Hit the putt and win the tournament. McIlroy felt “concern”. He pulled it back. Tied for the tee on 17. Left bunker tee on 17, then a very eager chip from the mouth of the green on 18, leaving a 3.5-foot twisting, sliding putt for birdie that lipped for bogey. Four holes, 45 minutes, three bogeys and the course of golf history – all changed.

McIlroy suffered the most devastating defeat in recent golf history, while Bryson DeChambeau, who bogeyed his final three holes, emerged as the triumphant winner.

It took months before the full purpose of those 45 minutes became clear. McIlroy was not alone LOST US Open, he had left it in a way that rewrote the rest of his last decade of major championship struggles. Was it possible that the greatest golfer of his generation had not lost but drowned? And what would the choke, at this moment with so much on the line, mean for his standing among the greatest to ever play the game?

Meanwhile, DeChambeau had not only won the US Open, but revolutionized golfushering in a new era of sports under its biggest new show. DeChambeau wasn’t just a lightning rod, he was a lightning rod on a historic trajectory, embodying a new generation of golf greats with an undeniably magnetic persona. He was not only an important player, but a big one, with plenty of time yet to establish himself as an all-time great.

An inch and a half on a two-foot putt, a club less on a par-3, a few revolutions less on the 18th green and these stories are different.

McIlroy and the rest of the golf world will be mulling this possibility for some time. And there is something beautiful in that account. There would be no intrigue what is it without what could have been.

The magic is in the possibilities. The rest, as they say, is history.

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