Playing his fourth event in 4 weeks, McIlroy was at all times going to be combating fatigue. He additionally has a chilly and has stated he hasn’t been snug along with his fairway woods. Still, after an opening-round 62 he was nonetheless at it Friday, 5 below by means of 11 holes and within the lead at 13 below.
Then all of it went fallacious.
McIlroy hooked his tee shot out of bounds left on No. 12. After a penalty and hitting three from the tee, he blew his subsequent effort into the suitable fescue, superior his fourth shot into the greenside bunker, barely acquired his ball out of the sand, and took three to get down from there for an 8.
It was McIlroy’s sixth profession quad, and first because the 2021 PLAYERS Championship.
“You know, when you hit a tee shot like on 12, the first one, the second one is pretty difficult,” he stated, “and you’re sort guarding against the left one and I missed it right.”
He used a fairway wooden once more at the 271-yard fifteenth gap, and that, too, led to issues. His tee shot would up on the fescue-covered hillside proper of the inexperienced, and whereas he appeared to have averted catastrophe when his second shot stopped simply in need of the inexperienced, he bladed his third over the inexperienced and into the water. He took a drop, chipped up, and made an 11-footer to avoid wasting double.
It was a weird sequence for probably the greatest gamers on the planet, however McIlroy selected to deal with the positives: seven birdies, his scorching begin to the spherical, and the 36 holes left within the event.
“For whatever reason I haven’t been comfortable with my fairway woods the last couple weeks,” he stated. “You know, I simply hit three free ones there, two on 12, after which the one on 15. That was actually it. I performed properly the remainder of the best way. Obviously acquired off to that nice begin.
“I thought I came back well,” he added. “I made a good putt for 6 on 15 and then birdied 16. Yeah, I should be closer to the lead. Feel like I let a lot of guys into the golf tournament because of it. But, you know, it’s still only two rounds. There are two rounds left and a lot of golf left.”
