Rory McIlroy’s exhausting cost up the leaderboard on the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship got here to a screeching halt on Friday.
Seven beneath for the day as he stood on the tee of the par-3 17th, McIlroy hit what he thought was a crisp 5-iron that hit the downslope on the inexperienced and bumped into the correct greenside bunker. It appeared like a simple bunker shot, however McIlroy splashed out and was stunned on the lack of sand beneath the ball, his shot crusing previous the flag and working by means of the inexperienced, over the again and into one other bunker, this time along with his ball settling close to the again edge, on a downslope. He walked off with a triple-bogey 6.
Even with a bounce-back birdie on the final, McIlroy settled for one more 67 and now finds himself 9 pictures off the lead on the midway level in Abu Dhabi.
“I simply need to exit tomorrow and attempt to get off to a quick begin and get myself again into it,” he stated.
Nonetheless, it’s been an encouraging efficiency for McIlroy, who’s making his first begin in a month and has been working exhausting on just a few swing adjustments. Although he stated he missed extra pictures to the correct than in his opening spherical, and struggled at instances within the left-to-right wind, McIlroy has seen progress by means of the primary few days. It’s been tough to stability, he stated, attempting to attain properly with ensuring he sticks to his new swing keys that maintain his clubface extra closed on the takeaway.
“I believe it’s been a very good couple of days,” he stated.
McIlroy will seemingly want a repeat of his Saturday efficiency earlier this yr in Dubai, when he carded a 63 and rocketed up the leaderboard on his strategy to an eventual victory. With the tender situations and low scoring this week, nevertheless, he is aware of it nonetheless will not be sufficient.
“It will likely be as much as me,” he stated.