Rory McIlroy shows his class as Pinehurst bares it’s U.S. Open teeth
Rory McIlroy fell victim to Pinehurst’s quickfire greens as he looked to retain his position near the top of the U.S.Open leaderboard.
The world no.3 fired a brilliant opening round of 65 to hold a share of the first-round lead, and he did so without a single bogey on his card, but things were very different on a fiery track on Friday.
Starting his second round at the 10th hole, McIlroy dropped his first shot of the week at the 11th hole, and another soon followed on 15 to leave him two over par for his round after just six holes.
Things looked set to go from bad to worse on the 199-yard par three 17th when he fired his tee-shot to the left side of the green and was faced with a downhill putt approaching 50 feet on the slick surface.
To McIlroy’s horror the ball was never tracking towards the hole, and instead picked up speed as it ran past the cup, ran through the fringe of the green and ended up some 40 feet away from the target.
However faced with an awkward looking chip back up the valley that he had just sailed through, McIlroy composed himself to showcase his short-game wizardry with a brilliant chip.
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The ball landed a couple of feet onto the green, took a couple of bounces and at perfect pace nestled into the cup for the Northern Irishman’s sixth par of the round.
While McIlroy’s round was not going as he would have liked, there were many feeling the same kind of heat with scoring again proving tricky.
However if the 35-year-old is to taste major success for the fifth time in his career he will need to show the same sort of patience and recovery all weekend with Pinehurst unlikely to get any easier.
A first birdie of the day eventually arrived on the third hole - McIlroy’s 12th - to take him within one of Patrick Cantlay who was among the later starters and had not seen any of those out on the course early close in on him.
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McIlroy’s playing partner, and PGA champion, Xander Schauffele was enjoying the best performance of the day. After birding his first two holes of the day, he found birdies at five of his next 10 holes before a late seven slipped him back down the leaderboard.
World no.1 Scottie Scheffler completed the group, but could not get anything going early in his round, finding himself two-over-par through 12 holes and well adrift of the lead.
Elsewhere, McIlroy's Ryder Cup teammate Sepp Straka did not have as much luck on the same 3rd hole that McIlroy birdied.
He thundered his approach into the flagstick but rather than draw the sting, the ricochet sent the ball off the green and into the bunker before he eventually recorded a triple bogey seven.
The Austrian had his revenge soon after with a brilliant hole-in-one at the 9th to claim back a couple of those lost shots .
With the greens getting slicker by the day, McIlroy's rock -solidearly round endedup looking better by the hour.