Rory McIlroy was far from his best on Friday at the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill, but he heads into the weekend trailing Shane Lowry by just four shots.
The world number two cut a frustrated figure as battled his swing and misfortune on the front nine, falling victim to mudballs on a couple of holes, and uncharacteristic mishits on others, but showed his battling qualities to make the turn at level par after trading two birdies and two bogeys.
While Lowry was putting a very tasty round together and holed a monster putt on the 13th, McIlroy followed him in from shorter range and it kick started a revival. A tidy up-and-down on the par-5 16th got him to -2 for the day and -4 overall, then a 34-footer of his own dropped on 17 and suddenly he was very much within striking distance.
Rory McIlroy with a HUGE birdie putt at the 17th!
McIlroy shoots 2-under 70 for the second consecutive day at the #APInvpic.twitter.com/V5qb74pfpM
— Golf On Tap (@OnTapGolf) March 7, 2025
Unfortunately, just when it looked as though he’d ironed out the kinks that had threatened to derail his chances, a poor swing on the 18th tee saw him find the right rough for the second day in succession. From there, he was forced to layup and gave himself a 20-footer for par that he had an aggressive run at and ended up with five feet for bogey. He cleaned that up, dropping back to -4 overall but in a tie for fifth with the afternoon wave in the early stages of their round.
It’s rather unusual to see McIlroy heading to the range after a round, but it was indicative of his frustrations with how loose his game had been that that’s exactly what he did instead of talking to the media.
He’ll feel that if he can tidy up the errors and get a couple more putts to drop, he’s still very much the man to beat as the golf course continues to play tough and the eventual winning score may not be much lower than the tally that Lowry currently leads with.
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