Following world number one Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy yesterday was the clearest evidence I’ve seen of just how far off it Rory is right now. A 10 shot gap after two rounds should be evidence enough of the gulf between them, but watching them side by side in the exact same conditions showed me the gulf is probably even bigger than the leaderboard suggests.
Scheffler is in a world of his own right now. He’s got the look of a man who is just out to play golf as opposed to thinking about swinging a golf club. Minimal swing thoughts, executing whatever shot is in front of him at any one time. He might be one of the more docile characters on tour and on the course he has the air of a man who’s life exists outside of golf.
Rory on the other hand looks like a man battling voices in his head, a million different swing thoughts and a desperation to play well again. After his 77 yesterday he told the media, ‘My golf swing felt horrific for the last six or seven holes.’ It looked like it too. It all went wrong on 11, where a double bogey pushed him closer to the cut line and his golf became tight and tetchy.
Rory produced no birdies yesterday. Over the first two days he hit a miserable 17/36 greens in regulation compared to Scheffler’s 23/36, both of whom are behind Max Homa‘s and Bryson DeChambeau‘s 26 greens in regulation. Rory’s driving stats – just 6/14 fairways found yesterday – was tied for 86th in an 89 man field. When Rory’s driver isn’t firing, you know his swing really isn’t in good shape.
He bemoaned the pace of play on the 11th in particular. ‘It felt like it took an hour to play that hole. It was stop and start, hard to get into a rhythm with the conditions and obviously how slow the play was as well.’ It feels like this kinds of external criticisms that only come from a player not swinging it at their best.
Shaking hands at the end of their first round
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Scheffler – who’s biggest error of the day came when he played the 5th-7th holes in two over par – acknowledged the slow pace of play, but emphasized how he refuses to let that bother him.
‘I try to relax as much as possible out there, but I feel like I teed off 10 hours ago. It was a long day. And, I mean, that’s what happens. When you have greens this fast and this much wind and that much water out there, it’s going to take a while to play golf. That’s pretty much it.’
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