Rory McIlroy believes that the mental and physical effort it took to beat Lee Westwood in Sunday morning's semi-final ultimately cost him the WGC-Accenture Match Play title in Arizona.
Feeling somewhat drained by his drama-packed all-British battle with Westwood which he eventually won 3&1, McIlroy started sluggishly in his afternoon 18-hole final against American Hunter Mahan and fluffed chances to get in front and by the 10th found himself 4-down.
He rediscovered some of the quality golf he had used to engineer his winning comeback against Westwood after being three-down, but this time it wasn't going to be enough as a resolute Mahan held him off and went on to win 2&1.
"I was so up for that (semi-final) match this morning," the 22-year-old McIlroy said after it was all over. "It was so great to get through.
"But I said it in here last night that the difficult thing would be to get myself up again for this afternoon.
Seems he was right.
"I tried to do the best I could and just got off to a slow start, which was disappointing. But I felt like I played cheap 910 D3 Driver
on the back nine."
"This is no disrespect to the other two guys in the other semi-finals, Hunter and Mark (Wilson) but to me it was almost like my final in a way," McIlroy said.
"That was the one I wanted all week and I got it. And that's what I got myself up for. I knew I needed to play cheap 910 D3 Driverreally well to beat Lee. I knew I needed my best cheap 910 D3 Driver out there this morning to get through."
Had his defeat strengthened McIlroy's resolve to become world number one or had his confidence taken a knock?
The Holywood Ulsterman answered that one by saying: "I've got two events coming up, the Honda (Classic) and Doral, and I just want to keep putting good results up on the board and trying to get a few wins.
"If I can do that, then ultimately getting to the top of the world rankings is hopefully inevitable.
"But for the time being, I think I can just put it out of my head somewhat and just try and focus on winning golf tournaments."
Overall, McIlroy said he could reflect on a positive week at Dove Mountain, which ended with him recording one eagle and three birdies in his last seven holes against Westwood.
"I got through a couple of matches early on the week, which could have gone either way," he added. "I dug in there and I was able to find some good golf when I needed to. So that was a positive.
"It's a good result. Not what I was looking for, but I can look back on this week and take many positives out of it."