McIlroy's Repeated Chip Blunder Costs Him at Tour Championship

On a Friday afternoon at East Lake, Rory McIlroy offered a quiet parable about the cost of hesitation: standing fifteen yards from the green, he made the same tentative chip twice in succession, watching the ball roll back to his feet each time before finally reaching the green with a double bogey. In a sport where the margin between greatness and mediocrity is measured in fractions of force and fractions of faith, McIlroy's moment on the third hole of the Tour Championship's second round was less about bad luck than about the particular way self-doubt compounds itself. Six strokes now separat