World No. 2 Rory McIlroy was incredibly self-critical of his own performance while also tackling slow play after his dream of a career Grand Slam was shattered again at Augusta.
Rory McIlroy admitted his swing was “horrible” after struggling to qualify on the windswept pitch. Mastery. And the world The No. 2 showed his frustration with the slow pace of play after taking six hours to complete his second round.
The Ulsterman opened with a 71 – his lowest opening round since 2018. But with wind gusts reaching 45 mph on this bizarre Friday, he played his first round without a birdie here since 2016 as he headed home him limping in 77.
The difficult conditions saw players take more shots – and more time to judge the shots. with an average score of 75.08. There was a queue at the 11th tee – and McIlroy then found water en route to a double-bogey six on the toughest hole on the course.
“It was a long time, yes,” McIlroy said. “My Golf the swing was horrible for the last six or seven holes, just sitting there. Especially that 11th hole, 11, I felt like it took an hour to play that hole. Yeah, it was stops and starts, hard to find a rhythm with the conditions and obviously the slow pace of the game too.
The four-time Major winner enters the weekend a par four over after battling to par his final four holes in the worst conditions of the day to play the weekend.
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“It was a tough day, a really tough day,” McIlroy said. “It’s just hard to score and just try to make as many pars as possible. I felt like everything was okay. I made that bogey on the 14th, and even just to par the last four holes and get into the clubhouse and get a tee time tomorrow, I’m pretty happy with it.
“Mentally it’s a chore because you just have to try to commit as best you can to the shot you’re trying to play. One second you’ll have a shot that plays 150, and then if the wind does something different, the shot might play 180. That could make a difference of 30 yards. It’s really hard to commit to trying to play the right shot, but you also have to hit it at the right time. So quite delicate.
McIlroy is 10 shots behind the three American leaders at the halfway point – world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, Bryson DeChambeau and Max Homa – in his 10th attempt to complete his career Grand Slam. He is fast approaching the 10th anniversary of his last major victory. And Jack Nicklaus warned ahead of the 88th Masters that legends like Arnold Palmer and Tom Watson had never won all four Majors – and that it would get “harder” every year.
But the Ulsterman insisted he could still get the job done this weekend. “I won out of 10 in Dubai at the start of the year,” he said. “But obviously the Dubai Desert Classic and the Masters are two very different golf tournaments. We’ll see. Hopefully the conditions are a little better tomorrow. Yeah, I still think I can go out tomorrow and shoot a low score, come back in the red numbers and have half a chance before Sunday.
But Golf Channel analyst Paul McGinley said: “His iron play was poor. That’s what he’s really struggled with this year. He improved last week after going to see Butch Harmon in Las Vegas and finished third at the Valero Texas Open. But he struggled with the irons again at Augusta. He doesn’t play very well. Players come in and out of shape. And Rory is not in good shape at the moment.
