Rory bounces back for new major effort
THEY might have flopped at the Masters last month but Rory McIl roy and Justin Rose will be two men on a mission when the majors season resumes at the USPGA Championship in New York next week.
Both will make reconnaissance trips to mighty Bethpage Black over the next few days, where Rose will seek to get back on track after admitting he got his Masters run-up ‘horribly wrong,’ while McIlroy will renew his acquaintance with a course that he freely admits ought to be right up his alley.
In relation to the Masters, Rose’s best results always followed playing at the Houston Open the previous week, where the sloping greens were cut to roughly the same slippery speed found at Augusta.
When that tournament switched dates in the revamped golf calendar, the 38 year old Englishman tried something different as well - with disastrous results, as he missed the halfway cut for the first time.
‘I got my preparation wrong,’ he admitted. ‘I took a month off in February, which was designed to make me feel fresh going into the Masters, but I came out of that with my game not where I wanted it to be. I ended up practising far more than I wanted for Augusta, and ended up feeling tanked by the second round.’
For McIlroy, the prospect of the major most suited to his gifts offers the prospect of the perfect pick-me-up following the bitter disappointment of his tied 22nd showing in pursuit of the one Grand Slam event that eludes him.
‘I’ve played Bethpage a few times now in competition and did reasonably well there at the US Open in 2009,’ said the Northern Irish man, who notched a top ten that week. ‘I feel like it’s a course that fits my eye and, in particular, when it’s soft it’s right up my alley.’
The pair completed their competitive preparations in tandem at the Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow, North Carolina yesterday, hoping to inspire one another as they sought to make up ground on the third round leaders.
McIlroy, twice a winner of the event and who celebrated his 30th birthday on Saturday with a 68, was just three behind at the start of play, with Rose four strokes adrift.
Offering encouragement were the three Americans above them: Max Homa, Joel Dahmen and former PGA Champion Jason Dufner, hardly added up to an intimidating trio.
After starting in similar vein, Rose and McIlroy went in different ways in the middle of their rounds. Rose had three birdies in five holes from the seventh and was four shots behind 28-year-old Californian Homa, when play was suspended due to i nclement weather; McIlroy, by stark contrast, played the same stretch of holes in three over to fall from contention. Seamus Power recovered from a poor start which saw him two over at the turn to get back to one under for the day, eight under in total, after 15 holes.
Meanwhile, at the Volvo China Open, Mikko Korhonen clinched his second victory on the European Tour as he edged out Benjamin Hebert on the opening play-off hole.
Nearly a year on from his win at the Shot Clock Masters in Austria, Korhonen carded seven birdies in his closing sixunder-par 66 to draw level with Hebert, who held a three-shot lead overnight.
The pair could not be split on 20 under after 72 holes but it was Korhonen who held his nerve when they played the 18th again, the Finn sinking an 11-foot putt for birdie as his opponent only maDe par.
‘It’s amazing. I don’t know how I did it, probably the putter today and most of the days. All day it was a battle, everybody was making putts. I had to just stay there and make my putts and just concentrate on the moment,’ said Korhonen.