sport news Rory McIlroy struggles on St Patrick's Day at Sawgrass as Northern Irishman ... trends now
THE runway to The Masters is growing ever shorter and with each passing week the questions are getting louder and more perplexing around the form of Rory McIlroy.
If there was any progress to report from his trip to The Players Championship, it is that he was able to sign off with a tie for 19th. Given his previous four starts yielded positions of 21, 21, 24 and 66, that will have to do for now if he is minded to search the bottom of his bag for optimism.
The tale of his closing loop of 72 was fitting for a week in which his only point of consistency was an ability to follow multiple moments of promise with sustained bursts of errors.
One statistic demonstrated the wildness of his undulations better than any other – across the four rounds he carded 26 birdies, which was the second most in field. And yet he accompanied them with so many mistakes that, at the time of writing, his nine-under-par total was a full 11 strokes behind the leader, defending champion Scottie Scheffler, who was leading Xander Schauffele down the stretch.
In a nutshell, that has often been the McIlroy conundrum – few players have his capacity to damage a course with great play, but too many others are better able to limit the amount that is self-inflicted.
Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland reacts to a missed putt on the first hole on Sunday
McIlroy hits from the pine straw on the first in the final round of The Players Championship
Across the four rounds, McIlroy carded 26 birdies, which was the second most in field
The jarring part is that he opened this tournament in brilliant fashion – his first-round 65 was exceptional. But come the end, his driving was wayward (only 50 per cent of fairways hit all week) and his approaches were too ragged for a sustained assault. Better than last week at Bay Hill; a long way beneath his best.
With all that in mind, the very last hole of his 72 was maybe the most appropriate way for it
