LOS ANGELES – All Rory McIlroy could do was shake his head and snicker.

Most of the anger had passed at this point. Now it was becoming comical. McIlroy walked after his ball in dismay, tapping in for par on the ninth hole at The Riviera Country Club after another eminently makeable putt inside 10 feet slipped by.

McIlroy’s goal was clear early on Sunday: make Jacob Bridgeman feel his presence.

If McIlroy did that, he believed he had a chance to overcome the six-shot deficit he began the day with. As it turned out, that would’ve worked. Bridgeman was shaky down the stretch, admitting he couldn’t feel his hands for the last hour of play as chasers made runs in front of him.

But by the time the nerves hit Bridgeman, it was too late and McIlroy was too far back. For that, McIlroy had his putting to blame.

It was almost a cruel twist of fate that one finally dropped on the 18th, a 29-foot bomb for birdie that equaled the feet of putts he had made until that point. It gave McIlroy one last glimmer of hope, but Bridgeman holed his 3-foot par putt to seal his maiden TOUR victory.

McIlroy finished one stroke back in a tie for second.

“I'll rue basically all 18 holes yesterday and then the front nine today, like 27 holes where I failed to capitalize on the chances I gave myself,” McIlroy said.

The opportunities were there early for McIlroy. He missed an 11-foot eagle putt on the first hole, a 10-foot birdie putt on the fourth, a 5-foot par putt on the sixth, an 8-foot birdie putt on the eighth hole and the aforementioned 6-foot birdie putt on the ninth. When the last one slipped by, it confirmed McIlroy had made up zero ground. He started the day six strokes back and the deficit was still six as he and Bridgeman walked to the 10th tee.

McIlroy’s fortunes began to turn from there. With Bridgeman unable to make a birdie after the third hole, McIlroy picked up shots with birdies on Nos. 11 and 12, the latter of which came from a bunker hole-out that he was just hoping to get within 6 feet.

He navigated the next couple with pars and holed his longest putt of the day, to that point, on the 15th – an 8-footer – to escape with another par. He missed a 20-foot birdie on the 16th, but still gained a stroke as Bridgeman made bogey. But trailing by three strokes at that moment, McIlroy still needed more. He did his part, making birdie on 17 and 18, but Bridgeman managed pars on each to escape with the victory.

The final statistics didn’t paint a pretty picture. McIlroy lost almost two strokes on the greens on Sunday and more than three strokes between the final two rounds. It was a complete reversal from the first two days, when he gained 4.5 strokes.

“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,” McIlroy said. “I was reading too much into them, and then I'd see like 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, yeah, giving them too much thought and not going with my first instinct and that sort of cost me.”

The putting cost McIlroy the win, but he was largely positive about his form after the round. In his first two starts of the year, the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and here at Riviera, he’s finished tied for 14th and tied for runner-up. He’s seen noticeable improvement from his first two starts of 2026 in Dubai. After Sunday’s round, McIlroy said he believes he’s playing as well as he did during this stretch last year when he won at Pebble Beach and THE PLAYERS Championship.

“If you look at how I played last week, the birdies that I made, yeah, OK, I made a few big numbers but I was able to cut those big numbers out this week,” McIlroy said. “I think I only had three bogeys for the week. I feel like my game's in really good shape. I'm looking forward to getting on some Bermuda greens over the next couple weeks.”

That should iron out some of the sloppiness on the greens we saw Sunday. And when that happens, McIlroy might be the one running away with golf tournaments instead.