{"id":57720,"date":"2026-08-28T20:02:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T20:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/57720\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T20:02:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T20:02:10","slug":"mcilroy-fails-to-make-headway-as-young-comes-from-nowhere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/57720\/","title":{"rendered":"McIlroy fails to make headway as Young comes from nowhere"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Rory McIlroy failed to make serious headway at the Tour Championship after a second round 69 left him six adrift of the leaders in East Lake.<\/p>\n<p>McIlroy, who last won the Tour Championship in 2022, had carded an underwhelming 68 to lie near the foot of the 29-strong field on Thursday but started his second brightly, rolling a 25-footer on the first for an opening birdie.<\/p>\n<p>Any positivity wasn&#8217;t to last long as McIlroy&#8217;s prospects were rocked by a double-bogey on the third, the Masters champion under-hitting two successive bump and run shots which saw the ball roll back to his feet twice in a row. <\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\">No, you are not watching a replay \ud83e\udee3<\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udcfa ESPN <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/p33GTZVYYs\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/p33GTZVYYs<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/PGATOUR\/status\/2093374372073386079\" rel=\"nofollow\">August 28, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The double was followed by a bogey at the fourth as McIlroy failed to save par from the bunker behind the green.<\/p>\n<p>He got back under par with a birdie at the par-5 sixth. A birdie-bogey combo in the middle of the back nine left him stuck at one under before a strong finish, birdies at the 16th and 18th seeing him post a one under score.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rte.ie\/sport\/results\/golf\/pga-tour-1\/28348\/tour-championship-908496\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">FULL LEADERBOARD <\/a><\/p>\n<p>Highlighting the tightness of the field, Players Champion Cameron Young made a spectacular move on Friday, going for last in the field to joint-first with a stunning 62.<\/p>\n<p>Young, the only player not under par after Round 1, was playing on his own following the withdrawal of JJ Spaun with a shoulder injury. He rolled in seven birdies in a remarkable eight-hole streak between the third and the 11th.<\/p>\n<p>While his momentum stalled with a bogey on 12, he finished with a flourish, landing an eagle on the par-5 18th to reach eight under and match Min Woo Lee&#8217;s score on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>Young has since been passed out by the leading duo Ryan Gerard and Akshay Bhatia, who are at nine under par and midway through their round.<\/p>\n<p>Overnight leader Lee has struggled early on, dropping back six under early in his second round..<\/p>\n<p>                    <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy failed to make serious headway at the Tour Championship after a second round 69 left him&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57721,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[685],"class_list":["post-57720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cameron-young","tag-cameron-young"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57720","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=57720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}