Standing firm on Open Friday is a precarious business – just ask the spectator by the 13th green who stretched out his hand to slap Rory McIlroy’s open palm only to slip on the trampled, matted grass and fall with a shuddering thwump on his backside. McIlroy joined a hundred others around our fallen patron in uproarious laughter.
McIlroy didn’t sprint towards the leaders on the tournament’s second day at Royal Birkdale, but neither did he stumble his way to an empty weekend. A three-under round of 67 hauled him back to one under for the event, albeit he went to the clubhouse trailing leader Lucas Herbert by seven shots.
“The main objective today was to be here for the weekend, which I am,” said McIlroy. “I felt like I left a couple out there. Then you look at the board and you see a couple of 62s, and you feel like you could have done a bit better. I think if I can get off to a decent start tomorrow, be four- or five-under for the tournament, I’ll be right in it.”
Those 62s belonged to Herbert and Sam Burns, who made hay in the benign early conditions. McIlroy had a morning tee-time too but he couldn’t push the throttle. The luxury of McIlroy’s raw talent is that he needs only one or two parts of his game in working order to compete. He is perhaps the only player in the world who could rank second-last in driving accuracy on his way to winning the Masters.
RM Block
But this week the script has flipped. On Thursday, he ranked 148th in putting and 152nd around the green among a field of 156 players, all the while throwing in a few wobbly irons from the first cut of rough. He propped himself up by wielding his driver as a crutch. McIlroy’s opening round was distilled in a three-hole stretch around the turn when he audaciously drove the ninth green to make birdie while missing two putts from four feet on each of the holes either side.
Friday was a less extreme version of the same Rory McIlroy Experience. He pounded a drive to 354 yards on the second hole and made birdie thanks to a deft wedge to the pin, but handed it back on the difficult sixth hole when he missed left with his approach from the rough. Another monstrous, 367-yard drive on the eighth hole yielded another birdie, before he returned to the ninth green for another flash of irresistible showmanship. Unsheathing driver like the sword from the stone, he slammed the ball to within 11 feet of a hole 403 yards away. He left the eagle attempt short but hauled himself back to even-par for the tournament.
McIlroy hadn’t spent his week planning to drive the ninth green, but the wind direction has shifted from his practice rounds and so, in his own words, “sometimes opportunities present themselves and you have to take them.” He blithely described the tee shot as comfortable – saying the grandstand gave him an easy target point – and reckoned his playing partner Xander Schauffele has the length to drive the same green. Schauffele may have McIlroy’s length, but he doesn’t have his daring.
But from there he stalled, forced to play away from a couple of treacherously tucked pins while continuing to look uncomfortable on the greens.
“I’m still trying to figure out these greens a little bit,” he said. “It was a little better today, but I still didn’t feel 100 per cent comfortable. I hit a couple of putts yesterday, and they did something completely different to what I saw in the read, and I think that’s a little unnerving. So it’s just a matter of trying to trust and commit to what you’re seeing.”
He did exactly this on 14, making birdie thanks to a steely, 22-foot putt up and across a ridge that sloped horribly to a bunker. He had to scramble from greenside to play his closing four holes in even par, stabbing out an exasperated laugh following another left miss to the par-three 15th.
While McIlroy will chase on Saturday from a standing start, nobody has such explosive power out of the blocks.
“I’ve driven the ball so well the last two days,” he said. “I think any time I can get a driver in my hand, I’m going to try to.”
