SOUTHAMPTON: Three bogeys in a row and a double bogey on the back nine doomed Rory McIlroy\u2019s hopes of pushing the leaders Friday at the US Open, but he fancies his chances just the same. World number two McIlroy fired a one-over par 71 to finish 36 holes on level par 140, seven behind leader Wyndham Clark entering the weekend at windy Shinnecock Hills. \u201cIf there\u2019s a course where you feel like you still have a chance if you\u2019re seven back going into the weekend like I am, it\u2019s definitely this one,\u201d McIlroy said.<\/p>\n
Blustery breezes, dense rough and tricky green speeds make the links-style layout difficult at the best of times and worse when winds gust. \u201cWhen you\u2019re chasing, it\u2019s sort of counterintuitive, but if I can limit my mistakes, I know everyone else in the field is going to make bogeys, so if I can pick off a few birdies here and there, hole a couple more 20-, 25-footers than other guys, that\u2019s really the strategy,\u201d McIlroy said. \u201cYou can\u2019t go chasing pins around here. You can\u2019t try to be too aggressive. You still have to play smart, try to keep the ball under the hole, hit it into the middles of the greens and take your chances when they present themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
The six-time major winner from Northern Ireland birdied the par-five fifth after reaching the green in two and birdied from just inside 15 feet at the eighth, but the back nine brought trouble galore. McIlroy missed the green with his approaches at 10, 11 and 12 to bogey each hole before dropping his approach at 13 just inches from the hole for a tap-in birdie. He followed with a 43-foot birdie putt at 14 but went over the 15th green and then into a bunker on the way to a double bogey.<\/p>\n
\u201cBack nine was a bit of a battle. Couldn\u2019t stop getting myself to hit it over the back of the green,\u201d McIlroy said. \u201cOne mistake on 15, bad chip shot from over the back, but the wind felt like it was laying down, then it certainly got back up again, around when we made the turn. \u201cStill feel like I\u2019m in the tournament and in with a decent chance.\u201d Erasing errors while rivals stumble is his plan. \u201cJust try to limit the mistakes a little bit over the weekend and feel like I\u2019m playing well enough to pick off a few birdies here and there,\u201d McIlroy said.<\/p>\n
McIlroy said he expects greens will continue to get firmer and faster over the weekend but has confidence they will not get out of hand. \u201cThe setup has been good,\u201d McIlroy said. \u201cThey\u2019ve had to set it up in some ways quite benign because of at least the expected wind yesterday that materialized for some part but not all of the day. \u201cLess players in the weekend, starting a little bit later, I think you\u2019ll start to see the golf course dry out a little bit and ramp up. \u201cBut I didn\u2019t really think there was any borderline pins. I thought they\u2019ve done a good job so far over the first couple of days.\u201d \u2014 AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SOUTHAMPTON: Three bogeys in a row and a double bogey on the back nine doomed Rory McIlroy\u2019s hopes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24656,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[9815,9813,9812,9814,399,1037],"class_list":["post-24655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rory-mcilroy","tag-chances","tag-kuwait-news","tag-kuwait-times","tag-mcilroy-7","tag-rory-mcilroy","tag-us-open"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}