Rory McIlroy was heading back to the driving range with his training aids to work on his new swing rehearsal after he lost ground with a 69 at the BMW Championship.
McIlroy carded just two birdies and one bogey as well as nine pars in a row to finish but his seven-under total puts him five shots behind Wyndham Clark heading into the weekend in St Louis.
The Masters champion felt he struggled off the tee and was going to work on the range for the afternoon.
“Maybe not as good. I hit a few loose shots. But as I said, it’s going to be a work in progress, there’s going to be days where it feels a bit better and going to be days where it doesn’t. Today I hit some decent iron shots but was a little more squirrely off the tee. Hit a couple decent ones coming in. But, yeah, I’ll go work on it a bit this afternoon.”
The world number two has an extra lob wedge and 7-iron as part of his practice routine with each club having a jumbo sized putting grip that is 45 degrees off centre and abnormally shaped and he credits it as playing a huge role in getting him into contention after a dismal effort last week.
“It just helps my right arm work better. Just the structure of it. Then the club gets more supported at the top. And then if I’m there I feel like I can really hit whatever shot I want. So it’s more to help the right arm structure and sort of feel like keeping the right hand like on top of the grip more on the way back.”
Meanwhile, US Open champion Clark holds a one shot lead over Gary Woodland on 12-under after back to back rounds of 64 with JJ Spaun in close proximity on ten-under.
“Yeah, felt great. Really drove it nicely. I hit some awesome iron shots throughout the day where a couple times I didn’t really even have to putt. Took advantage on a couple par-3s. So that was really nice. Yeah, overall really good. I would like to make that 9 to 15 foot range. I hadn’t made too many this week. But I’m really happy with my lag putts, short putts, everything.”
World number one and FedEx Cup leader Scottie Scheffler looked back to his old self as he skipped around in 65 shots to rise to 25th place on three-under. But at nine shots off the pace he will need something in the low 60s to give himself a chance of challenging over the weekend.
Scheffler came home in 30 with five birdies on the back nine.
“About the only difference was probably the back nine. I didn’t get off to a good start today either, but did a good job of fighting back. I made a good bogey there on 6, nice birdie on 7, good par on 9, and was able to get some momentum on the back.”
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