Rory McIlroy admitted he left his comeback too late after missing out by one shot to Jacob Bridgeman at the Genesis Invitational in Los Angeles.
American Bridgeman hung on to secure his first PGA Tour title despite late surges from McIlroy and Kurt Kitayama.
The Northern Irishman, trundling around at even par at the halfway stage, hit four birdies on the back nine to card 67 while Bridgeman finished with a nervy 72.
The 26-year-old claimed the title with a par putt on the last for a winning total of 18 under, one clear of McIlroy and fellow American Kitayama.
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“I’ll rue basically all 18 holes yesterday and then the front nine today, like 27 holes where I failed to capitalise on the chances I gave myself,” said McIlroy.
“Once I started to trust my reads a bit on the back nine and I went more with my first instinct, I putted a little bit better.
“I was reading too much into them, and then I’d see Jacob’s putt from the other side do something, I was like, ‘oh, that looked like it went more left than he thought it would’, so I’m sort of factoring that in.
“I was almost just giving them too much thought and not going with my first instinct and that sort of cost me.”
It was a definite improvement from last week when McIlroy finished tied-14th at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am after slipping out of contention following triple and double bogeys in the third round.
“If you look at how I played last week, the birdies that I made – yeah, okay, I made a few big numbers, but I was able to cut those big numbers out this week,” he added.
“I think I only had three bogeys for the week. I feel like my game’s in really good shape.”
