Rory McIlroy shot an uneventful and frustrating level-par round of 70 to sit four shots off the lead at the BMW Championship at Olympia Fields, Illinois.
McIlroy made just the one birdie with one bogey and now sits tied for fifth, but afterwards told the media that he didn’t see too many discrepancies with his opening effort that saw him tied for first at -5.
“I don’t feel like I played too differently to how I played yesterday. I just got a bit more out of my round yesterday,” he told the media after his round.
“Overall, I hit it a little better off the tee. I had a couple of big wides, on seven and on 15. I felt like I hit good putts, just hit a lot of edges, and the ball just sort of slid by,” McIlroy added.
One of McIlroy’s main challengers for the FedEx Cup title, world number one Scottie Scheffler, is tied with him on five-under. Scheffler added a one-under-par 69 to his Thursday 66 to join McIlroy, five shots back of Max Homa.
Jon Rahm, who’d entered the playoffs as the FedExCup number one, shot a four-over-par 74 to leave himself on two-over heading into the weekend.
Homa shot a course record, eight-under 62 to lead by two heading into the weekend. Homa made 10 birdies enroute to the best 36-hole tally of his career and afterwards he said that it was his performance off the tee set him up for success.
“I felt that the tee ball set up everything. It was a major bonus to make as many putts as I did, but it was all really good. I think that out here when you’re in the fairway, it becomes significantly easier, more so than other golf courses,” Homa said.
Homa was asked whether he knew what the course record was and provided an interesting explanation for how he had.
“I did, randomly because Kirk was playing good and the board said, Chris Kirk is challenging the course record of 63, so of course that’s — just randomly saw that today, and then I had to think about it. After I saw that the goal was just to keep playing well”.
Seamus Power’s hopes of a place at the Tour Championship appear to be over after he added a two-over 72 to his opening 76 to sit in last place on eight-over.
The Waterford native was five over for his front nine before making four birdies in a row on the back nine to salvage some pride.
Power tees off on his own after Hideki Matsuyama’s withdrawal reduced the field to 69. He gets his third round underway at 8.20am local time, 2.20pm Irish time.
McIlroy begins at 12.20pm local time, 6.20pm Irish time alongside Sungjae Im.
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