A fortnight after his Players Championship win, it’s not so much about the score as it is about fine-tuning for Rory McIlroy at the Texas Children’s Houston Open, but he still didn’t want to be going home empty handed.
Especially not when the only player above him in the world rankings was laying down a marker of his own. Scottie Scheffler came out firing and shot an eight-under 62 to open up a one stroke lead at the top, heaping extra pressure on the afternoon wave.
McIlroy was among the late starters on Friday at Memorial Park, and having played through the worst of the weather on Thursday, was destined for more disruption on day two as a two-hour weather delay arrived with McIlroy having completed only seven holes. When he three-putted the par-5 seventh to merely make par, the World No. 2 found himself outside the cut line to play the weekend.
McIlroy needed a resurgence, and he delivered. In dwindling light, he reeled off three birdies in a row from 15 to 17, finishing with a four-under-par 66 to complete 36 holes at four under—two shots above the cut line and seven strokes adrift of Scheffler.
“Yeah, it’s pretty nice,” McIlroy said. “It was a little dicey there at the end. Maverick [McNealy] made a really good up-and-down for par to make the cut. I was saying to [caddie] Harry [Diamond] I was just happy I had that shot cushion coming up the last because it was getting pretty dark.”
A day after McIlroy began with a “pedestrian” level-par 70, he managed only two birdies on Friday—at holes 2 and 3—through the first 14 holes. However, his round gained momentum when he sank a 16-foot birdie putt at the par-3 15th, followed by another birdie after chipping to four feet at the par-5 16th. Now safely inside the cut line, McIlroy added a third birdie with a solid approach to 12 feet at the par-4 17th.
“I hit it a little better coming in; I holed a couple of putts, that was it,” McIlroy said. “Again, it’s the sort of golf course where it’s easy to just make a ton of pars, not a lot of trouble out there. But you just need some putts to go in to obviously make birdies. … It was nice to see a couple putts go in and get finished and obviously get a couple more rounds here over the weekend.”
McIlroy, aged 35, is fine-tuning his preparations for the forthcoming Masters, where he will once again aim to complete the career Grand Slam. He is not competing in next week’s Valero Texas Open, making this his final competitive warm-up. Tied for 30th, McIlroy said he cannot dwell on the pace set this week by Scheffler, the defending Masters champion.
“I think I just have to play my own tournament and stay in my own little world, try to get the best out of myself,” McIlroy said. “Whether that’s good enough or not, that’s not really up to me at this point; that’s up to the guys that are in front of me on the leaderboard. But if I can go out there and shoot a couple of good scores over the weekend, I’ll be happy with my week’s work.”
There was no joy for Padraig Harrington who improved his opening round score by three but was well outside the cutline, but Seamus Power faces an anxious wait to see whether he’ll see weekend action.
A one-under 69 – his second in succession – leaves Power on -2, with 66 players currently at -3 and better. There are many yet to complete their second rounds, however, and morning scoring conditions make it unlikely that -2 will get through.
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