McIlroy suffers “one of those days” as Power’s Ryder Cup hopes fade
Rory McIlroy
Rory McIlroy insists he’s still in with a shout despite carding a “pretty mediocre” level par 70 to fall five shots behind Max Homa in the BMW Championship in Chicago.
The reigning FedExCup champion made just one birdie in a luckless putting round and admitted he needs to improve his spin control to have a chance at Olympia Fields.
As Homa shot an eight-under 62 to lead by two shots on 10-under from Chris Kirk (66), McIlroy fell back to tied fifth on five-under as his putter remained ice cold all day.
“Gave myself tons of chances,” he said. “I didn't really hole one putt apart from the birdie put on three. Hit a lot of good putts and a lot of edges just didn't get anything to drop.
“It was one of those days… but, you know, it wasn't disastrous. There’s still a lot of golf left over the weekend to try to make up some ground.”
He admitted he’s finding it difficult to control the spin on his wedges into soft greens and hopes the course firms up.
“I certainly haven't played a golf course where the greens have been this soft in quite a while,” he said. “Just trying to adjust to trying to always remember, okay, I need to throw this five or six past the hole to have it come back.”
He made his lone birdie of the day at the third, firing a wedge to 13 feet from the fairway.
But he didn’t give himself another birdie chance inside 15 feet for the remainder of the front nine.
A poor drive into the penalty area right of the 611-yard 15th led to his lone bogey, but he enjoyed a happier day than Seamus Power, whose Ryder Cup hopes look to be hanging by the slimmest of threads after he slipped to the bottom of the field on eight-over.
The West Waterford star, who battled a hip injury at The Open, looked in discomfort as he bogeyed the last and carded a two-over par 72 that left him 49th and last in the 50-man field after Japan's Hideki Matsuyama withdrew with a back injury before the start.
The Tooraneena man needs to finish in a two-way tie for 12th to jump from 35th in the top 30 in the FedExCup standings and qualify for next week's Tour Championship.
But that looks impossible now, and with automatic qualification out of reach, he will be relying on getting one of Luke Donald's six wildcards and hoping to impress the Englishman in the final-counting Omega European Masters in two weeks.
He hit just one green in regulation on the front nine and turned in five over 40 before following a run of four birdies in a row from the 12th — holing putts of eight feet, 18 feet, 26 feet and 66 feet — before finishing with a bogey.
