This one is what the old Ethics Scoreboard (now down again, I think for the count) used to categorize an “Easy Call.”

At Inhurst, North Carolina’s Pinehurst golf course yesterday, Bryson DeChambeau became the PGA U.S. Open champion again after Irish pro Rory McIlroy, to be blunt, choked.

McIlroy blew two short par putts within three holes, the last on the 18th, as DeChambeau nailed a tricky shot to finish 6 under par and a single shot better than McIlroy, who had seemed poised to win his first major tournament in ten years with just three holes to go.

McIlroy disillusioned his fans with his reaction to what ABC Sports used to call “the agony of defeat.” He watched DeChambeau’s winning putt on TV in the scorer’s room, then quickly packed up and sped out the players’ parking lot in a courtesy SUV. He didn’t talk to reporters, who were frantic to hear how he managed to lose. He didn’t even stick around to congratulate DeChambeau on his stunning victory.

Bad.

The golfer’s disappointment is certainly understandable. McIlroy had just finished runner-up in a major for the fourth time in his career. He had also finished second, again one stroke behind the champion, Wyndham Clark, in the 2023 U.S. Open at Los Angeles Country Club. Now he has the dubious distinction of being only the second player in the past 40 years to finish runner-up by one stroke in the same major tournament in consecutive years.

Never mind all that: part of having the privilege of being a professional athlete and getting paid to play games is being a role model for all athletes—for everyone, really, since sports are tests of character and useful metaphors for life. This isn’t hard, at least hard to understand; it is certainly hard to do. When pros lose dramatically in high profile events, or if it is their mistake or poor play that costs their team a big game, it becomes their obligation to step up, face the photographers, TV cameras and microphones, and talk about what happened. (“When you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you…”) At very, very, least, basic principles of sportsmanship demand that a handshake for the winner is called for.

Instead, Rory McIlroy indulged himself. He displayed cowardice instead of the character traits sports heroes exist to project.

Never mind Monty Python, hasn’t he seen any sports movies? Admittedly my focus is a bit skewed, but some of my favorite moments in sports films are when the previously villainous adversary, shockingly defeated by the underdog hero, shows class and decency by congratulating his conqueror. (Quick examples that first come to mind: “The Karate Kid” and “Cinderella Man.”)

McIlroy’s ethics alarms failed him badly yesterday, and he will have a hard time living it down. He deserves to.