Rory McIlroy’s hopes of a fifth Dubai Desert Classic victory – and third in succession – are slim, but the world number three is not giving up hope after a strong back nine on Saturday.
The reigning Race to Dubai champion was slow out of the blocks on moving day, carding eight pars and a bogey on the more difficult opening nine at the Mijalis Course at Emirates Golf Club. The short par-4 second and par-5 third offer the best birdie opportunities on the outward loop, but having missed the green right on two, he failed to convert a 10-footer for birdie and then was forced to layup after a wayward drive on three and came up short with his wedge and had to get up-and-down from the greenside bunker to save par.
Another poor wedge on eight again found the sand, but this time his bunker play couldn’t bail him out and he slipped back to -2, seemingly out of the running completely.
But he worked his way back to level for the day with a birdie on the par-5 10th, and got into red figures with another birdie-four on 13 having found the putting surface in two. He produced his best iron shot of the day on the par-3 15th and holed the 11-footer from the fringe, and with a short par-4 and a par-5 to come, he was harbouring hopes of reaching -7 at least.
A good tee shot on 17 left him just over the back and he got up-and-down to move to -6, but with 18 playing into the wind, he pushed his long approach a little, finding himself short-sided in the bunker. He got a little greedy with his splash out, and it almost rolled back in before his birdie chip slid by. He cleaned up the four-footer for par, signing for a 69 that, despite being his best round of the week thus far, requires something in the low 60s if he’s to challenge for top honours in Sunday’s final round.
“Yeah, got off to a bit of a slow start again,” was his assessment afterwards. “Then played much better on the back, you know, birdied a couple of the par-5s, and yeah, I hit the ball well today. You know, the conditions are pretty tough, windy, hard to get the ball close to the flag, and when the wind is like this, on these greens as they’re getting a little faster, the wind can affect the ball a little bit.
“But overall, in tricky conditions, I would’ve liked to have shot a few shots better, but I’m pretty happy with how I played.”
McIlroy was forced to make a late equipment change as he damaged a lob wedge hitting practice shots in the bunker prior to going out.
“Yeah, I had a spare thankfully,” he laughed. “I was hitting a few bunker shots to warm up and one of the balls came off a bit funny and I looked at the face and there was a massive score mark up the face from a stone. Luckily I had a brand new one in the locker, so it worked out okay.”
With the leaders still on course and tackling the scoring section of the course, it was hard to gauge exactly how far he’d be back going into the fourth and final round, but he still doesn’t expect the winning score to be much lower than -15, meaning that he’s not entirely out of the running.
“It really depends on what the conditions are tomorrow to be honest, but if it’s 15, I’d need to go out and shoot 63 tomorrow, but if the conditions are right, I’ve been able to do that before. If you can make a score on the front nine before that scorable back nine – my key tomorrow is if I can get off to a faster start and shoot three- or four-under on that front then I’ve got a chance.”
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