Rory McIlroy admitted his swing felt “horrific” in the closing stages of his second round at the Masters as the Northern Irishman fell away from contention at Augusta National.
The world No2 began the day at -1 but carded a birdie-less round featuring three bogeys and one double bogey to slip back to +4 and ten shots behind the lead, shared by Scottie Scheffler, Bryson DeChambeau and Max Homa.
The second-round display all but ended any hopes of McIlroy breaking his ten-year major drought as he struggled to get to grips with the tricky, windy conditions at Augusta.
“Tough day, really tough day,” the 34-year-old said after his round. “Scoring was very difficult. Most of the field couldn’t really get anything going. It was just a matter of trying to hang in there as best you could.
“Mentally it’s a grind because you just have to try to commit as best you can to the shot that you’re trying to play.
“One second you’ll have a shot that’s playing 150, and then if the wind does something different, the shot could be playing 180. It could be a 30-yard difference. You have to commit to trying to play the right shot, but then you also have to hit it at the right time as well. So pretty tricky.”
After the round, McIlroy was the last player seen at the driving range, hitting balls well into the darkness alongside his caddie Harry Diamond. The four-time Major champion is known for his prowess off the tee but ranked joint-83rd in the field for fairways hit in the first two rounds.
Per Justin Ray, Friday’s round also marked the first time since 2016 that he completed a round at the Masters without making a birdie.
McIlroy headed to the range after his second round
(Image credit: Getty Images)
However, despite being ten shots back at the halfway stage, McIlroy refused to rule out his chances of completing an unlikely comeback on the weekend.
“I won from 10 back in Dubai at the start of the year. But obviously, the Dubai Desert Classic and the Masters are two very different golf tournaments. We’ll see,” he added.
“Hopefully the conditions are a little better tomorrow. Yeah, I still think I can go out tomorrow and shoot a low one, get back into red numbers, and have half a chance going into Sunday.”
McIlroy gets his third round underway at 10.55am local time alongside Colombia’s Camilo Villegas.
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