Rory wakes up too late as he falls to earth
For 10 holes yesterday, rory McIlroy suffered such a bad reaction to his heroics at the Arnold Palmer Invitational on Sunday it was positively obscene.
An opening group assignment in the WGC-Dell Match Play Championship against former US Amateur champion Peter Uihlein always looked a tricky one for a man still on cloud nine.
No one could have guessed, however, he would fall to earth at such a clattering rate, as he found himself a pulverising five down.
How typical that a golfer who couldn’t miss on the greens on Sunday couldn’t buy a putt. Throw in a couple of unforced errors and the match was effecanother tively over before the back nine had begun. or so it seemed.
For it was at that moment that rory emerged from his sloth to turn in a five-hole cameo that recalled all the magnificent blows he struck on Sunday. From the 12th he had five birdies in a row to extend the match to a point where he actually emerged feeling good about a 2&1 defeat.
McIlroy’s birdies at the 12th and 13th were matched by Uihlein to leave the Northern Irishman five down with five to play. At the 14th, rory holed from 40 feet to stay alive; at the 15th, from eight feet.
At the par-five 16th, he was so pumped up his three wood second shot travelled through the green into a bunker. Another great sand shot to four feet and now he was two down.
What a force of nature he is when he gets in the zone. At the 17th, it came as a surprise when birdie putt didn’t drop — but it was some way to go down.
‘I just came out a little flat but at least I made him earn it and the scoreline look respectable,’ said McIlroy.
In the all-England battle, the ‘match play ninja’ Ian Poulter was a long way from his warriorlike best — but didn’t need to be.
Up against an out- of- sorts Tommy Fleetwood, the 42-yearold upstaged last year’s winner of the race to Dubai to get a week that could do so much for his career off to the perfect start.
It was one of the locals who came up with the ninja nickname for Poulter, and he added his own twist by dusting down his equivalent of a Samurai sword — the putter he wielded to such deadly affect at the ryder Cup at Medinah in 2012 — for its first public appearance in five years.
He even had a deep pink shirt on as he did on that unforgettable Saturday in Chicago when he changed everything by holing five birdie putts in a row to win his fourball match alongside McIlroy.
There the comparisons should end. If truth be told, if Poulter had putted back then like he did here, the Americans would have completed the Medinah massacre, not fallen victim to a miracle.
The match was seven holes old before either he or Fleetwood struck a shot that drew so much as a smattering of applause. By that stage, Poulter was one over par and yet still one up.
Needless to say, if it had been strokeplay the pair would have been a long way down the leaderboard. ‘ That’s the beauty of match play,’ said Poulter. ‘The only thing that matters is winning your match.’