RORY McILROY quickly found himself on the road to nowhere at the USPGA Championship, as his dismal run in the Majors continues.
McIlroy had to play an outrageous recovery shot on his opening hole – the par five tenth – bouncing his ball eighty yards down a cart track and sending it scuttling through the back of the green.
He managed to salvage par from there, and that set the tone for another day when the world No 4 had to scramble furiously just to stay afloat at Quail Hollow.
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He stumbled to four over par with three holes to play, and was in danger of missing the cut. Birdies at seven and eight banished those fears, but the result was still another one over par 72.
Those scrappy rounds have become all too familiar in the Majors since McIlroy landed his fourth big title in this event four years ago.
But even though he continues to look a shadow of the player who won made it back-to-back Majors with that 2014 victory in this event, the Quail Hollow course record holder refuses to accept this as a lost cause.
He was ten shots adrift of early pacesetter Kevin Kisner, but insisted: “If you take ‘Kiz’ out of the equation I feel I’m right in there, although it will take two low rounds over the weekend for me to win from here.
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“But the changes to this course mean low rounds are not the 61s and 62s I’ve shot here in the past, they are 66s or 67s.
“I certainly feel like I’ve got a couple of 67s in me, which is what Kiz has started out with. If I can shoot those numbers, I would really like my chances.”
McIlroy was so encouraged by the way he played his version of the Road Hole that he went on to play his opening nine holes in one under par.
He added: “That could easily have been a six or seven there, esepically as I was a bit unlucky with my second shot. I blocked it a bit right, but I was amazed it had gone through the galleries and run back down the cart path.
“I had a free drop but it landed in a bad lie and all I could do was take a six iron and bounce it along the road and see where it ended up.
“I thought the bunker in front of the green was the best I could hope for, but it bounced over that and finished up in a decent spot just off the green.
“I played OK after that but I wasn’t fusing it off the tee, and I had to scramble a bit off the tee.
“In the end I got out of position too often, and I was feeling pretty pissed off standing on the seventh tee after bogeying four of the previous five holes.
“But I worked my ass off to get the two birdies, and that could prove big.
“It’s not easy to make up shots on this course, and if I’d been another two back it would have made things a lot more difficult.”
McIlroy, 28, has not been a serious contender in any of his last ten Majors. It will take a massive resurgence for him to change that here.
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