Golf legend Sir Nick Faldo has cast a shadow over Rory McIlroy's prospects of securing another major win following his disappointing start to The Open Championship at Royal Troon on Thursday.
McIlroy's hopes of claiming the Claret Jug this Sunday seem slim after he posted a seven-over-par opening round , which left him in 126th place and facing a tough fight to make the cut.
Thursday's performance was a disheartening comeback to the major stage for the Northern Irish golfer , just one month after his U.S. Open disappointment, where he lost a two-shot lead over the final four holes, extending his decade-long wait for a fifth major championship victory.
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Faldo, who holds the title of the most successful European golfer ever with six major wins, expressed growing doubt with each passing tournament that 35 year old McIlroy will experience major success again.
"I would love him to but it is a big but now," Faldo shared with BBC Radio 4. "It really is a big but. People say flick a switch and go and make it happen. It is just not that easy, is it? You lose your trust, a bit of self-belief and that doubt creeps in some small percentage. And you can't quite play how you used to play.
"Rory is only 35, fit as a fiddle, strong, hitting the golf ball great but an awful lot of scar tissue and damage. And then of course he put himself in an unbelievable position at Pinehurst and then it all went wrong. Amazing how one putt from two feet on the 16th, you suddenly doubt yourself and you think 'Oh my goodness'. You can see how his mind got scrambled.
"That unfortunately is another moment where he was so close, like St Andrews. He was leading by, what, three? Had a great putt over on the ninth, missed it and of course, Cam Smith goes birdie-birdie. And then all of a sudden he could have been four ahead and you are only one. Little things like that.
"On the technical side, as we know with his short game, anything from a 9-iron in, he doesn't trust it 100 per cent. He knows occasionally he pulls some left and then you guard against that. It is a brutal game between their ears.
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"Difficult day," he said. "I felt like I did okay for the first part of the round and then missed the green at the Postage Stamp there and left it in and made a double.
"But still, felt like I was in reasonable enough shape being a couple over through 9, thinking that I could maybe get those couple shots back, try to shoot even par, something like that.
McIlroy shared his struggles with the shift in wind condition during his game. He said: "The course was playing tough. The conditions are very difficult in a wind that we haven't seen so far this week.
"I guess when that happens, you play your practice rounds, you have a strategy that you think is going to help you get around the golf course, but then when you get a wind you haven't played in, it starts to present different options and you start to think about maybe hitting a few clubs that you haven't hit in practice. Yeah, just one of those days where I just didn't adapt well enough to the conditions."
To make a comeback, McIlroy will need to best Troon under par in his second round, which kicks off at 3.10pm. He will be joined on the green by Tyrrell Hatton (+2) and Max Homa (+5).
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