Rory’s regret

Rory McIlroy is a twotime winner at Quail Hollow with only one finish outside the top 10 in seven appearances.

He wasn’t playing quite the same course in the PGA Championship.

The new holes the club built — Nos. 1, 4 and 5 — were not the issue. It was the Bermuda grass lining the fairways and around the greens that made it far more difficult, not to mention putting surfaces that were firm and fast.

“Once you get yourself out of position, it’s very difficult,” he said. “It’s tricky around the greens.”

He found that out the hard way when his chip just left of the green at the par-3 13th raced some 15 feet by the hole, leading to a bogey. On the next hole, after hitting his 3-wood into the water on the reachable par 4, McIlroy still had a reasonable chance of saving par until he caught the chip heavy. When he missed a short putt, he walked off with a double bogey.

Then, he failed to birdie the par-5 15th from just short of the green after gouging a 5-wood out of the rough. He played that stretch in 3 over; he would have hoped to have played it in 1 or 2 under.

“If I just could have had that three-hole stretch back,” he said, “but I think other than that, I played nicely. Did what I needed to do. Birdied the par 5s, birdied the holes that you should birdie. I’m just disappointed with that threehole stretch, but I’m right in it . ... ”