Rory McIlroy feels he is trending ever closer to his ‘A’ game after a twelve-under weekend at Wentworth saw him make a charge at the BMW PGA Championship.
Having made the cut on the number late on Friday evening, rounds of 67 and 65 saw McIlroy soar into the top-10 and briefly flirt with the lead on a damp Sunday in Surrey and although his charge will eventually come up short, he was pleased with his weekend improvement.
“Honestly not that much (difference from Thursday and Friday). I maybe drove the ball better over the weekend just had more awareness of what my misses were and playing away from them and managing my game a bit better,” McIlroy told Sky Sports Golf.
“Still didn’t feel like I was that much on my game I just scored better and pieced it together. I held some nice putts over the last couple of days which was nice, felt a little bit better over the weekend but still want to do a bit of work between now and Rome.”
After an opening par, hype gathered over a potential Sunday charge from McIlroy after a birdie, birdie, eagle run saw him edge onto the first page of the leaderboard. He followed up a dropped shot on 6 with birdies on 7 and 8 before putting himself into position to post a number with birdies on 12 and 15.
Unfortunately the four-time major winner was unable to birdie 17 and 18 despite finding the fairway off the tee and he had to settle for an encouraging thirteen-under total which leaves him in good stead heading for Rome.
“I’m standing here disappointed because I feel like I’ve done all the hard work, I hit a great seven iron into 15 and I made the birdie putt, with sixteen, seventeen and eighteen to come you are hoping to birdie at least two of the three holes coming in and I didn’t do that especially hitting the fairway on 17 and 18 I’m quite disappointed, it would have been nice to post fifteen-under especially with those tough holes coming in and see what the guys can do. Overall it was a big improvement over the weekend and a nice way to finish off the tournament.
“I don’t feel my game has been that far away and I’ve had to manage a back issue from Tour Championship. Had a chance to win last week and the two balls in the water on 16 make the result look worse than it probably was and another solid performance over the weekend here. Not far away I am pretty close to firing on all cylinders.
“I don’t want to get too excited, there’s still nearly two weeks to go before we tee it up on the Friday of The Ryder Cup. Still got plenty of time. I’ll hang around here for the next week and get some really good work in Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday before heading to Rome, which will be great, and you know, once we get there, we still have four days of practise to do. So I’ll certainly be chomping at the bit to get started.”
Play was suspended for lightning with McIlroy four shots behind Tyrrell Hatton although the Englishman had driven out of bounds.
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