Rory McIlroy’s arduous cost up the leaderboard on the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship got here to a screeching halt on Friday.
Seven below 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 an easy bunker shot, however McIlroy splashed out and was shocked on the lack of sand below the ball, his shot crusing previous the flag and operating by the inexperienced, over the again and into one other bunker, this time together 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 an additional 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 mentioned.
Nonetheless, it’s been an encouraging efficiency for McIlroy, who’s making his first begin in a month and has been working arduous on just a few swing modifications. Although he mentioned he missed extra pictures to the correct than in his opening spherical, and struggled at occasions within the left-to-right wind, McIlroy has seen progress by the primary few days. It’s been troublesome to stability, he mentioned, attempting to attain nicely with ensuring he sticks to his new swing keys that hold his clubface extra closed on the takeaway.
“I feel it’s been a great couple of days,” he mentioned.
McIlroy will possible 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 gentle situations and low scoring this week, nonetheless, he is aware of it nonetheless is probably not sufficient.
“It will likely be as much as me,” he mentioned.
