Rory stuck in a rut as Florida flop continues
FIve bunker shots, four dropped shots, three missed putts f rom short range, two poor chips and one blow into the water. And that was just the front nine.
It’s fair to say Rory McIlroy’s curious Florida funk continued yesterday in the opening round of the WGC-Cadillac Championship at Doral.
A desperately mediocre outward half of 40 strokes in the testing winds meant he had played his first 45 holes in the Sunshine State this year — taking in last week’s two rounds at the Honda Classic and now here — in a startling 11 over par.
For a man who never finished outside the top 25 in any event in America last season, it was a telling reminder that you never quite know when this game is going to turn around and bite you.
Opening up from the 10th offered the chance of a flying start, since there are two par fives in the first three holes. But McIlroy drove into fairway bunkers on both.
Just to compound the frustration, his approach to the par four 11th was a metre short of being perfect, yet plugged in a greenside bunker to bring an unlucky bogey.
So it continued. every good iron shot he played he couldn’t take advantage of, while every bad shot invariably led to more damage to his scorecard.
Two over par coming to the 18th, McIlroy became another victim of this punishing hole as he found the water from the middle of the fairway and failed to get up and down for a bogey from the side of the green.
even at this early stage, McIlroy had fallen a distance behind his playing partners, world No 2 Bubba Watson and No 3 Henrik Stenson, who each finished on one and three under respectively.
Masters champion Watson showed all his flamboyance with a marvellous second shot to the par-five 12th that came within i nches of dropping f or an albatross. He tapped in for an eagle on his way to a front nine of 34, while Stenson was one better.
Clearly, a dramatic improvement was required on McIlroy’s inward nine. After three pars, a glimpse of the real Rory was on offer at the difficult par-three fourth, where his long iron finished 12ft away and he rolled in the putt for his first birdie.
The next hole is a par four measuring 410 yards but the Northern Irishman hit his drive so far it finished just 46 paces from the green. He played an expert pitch to five feet and holed that one for his second birdie in a row.
Just as he looked like he had some momentum, however, he threw in another sloppy bogey, but bounced back with a birdie at the seventh. An eagle at the eighth and a bogey at nine summed up his rollercoaster round of 73.
McIlroy’s troubles were nothing compared to those of Ryder Cup team-mate Stephen Gallacher.
The Scot was one-under through six before a disastrous run saw him play the back nine in 46 shots — including a quadruple bogey on the 18th.
American JB Holmes played some remarkable golf to lead after a 10-under-par 62, four ahead of fellow countryman Ryan Moore.
Welshman Jamie Donaldson, runner-up here last year, was again showing his liking for the place, finishing two under par.