As Masters awaits, Rory McIlroy has driving and putting issues to shore up

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Florida. Rory McIlroy’s first miss since last August came in an offhand finish early Saturday at the Players Championship. The Northern Irishman closed out with 73 points for a total of 5 overs, three of which were away from the cut line.

After starting the 76th, McIlroy quickly headed in the wrong direction in Round 2 with a ghost-double ghost run through Nos. 5 and 6 on Friday. early Saturday, where he finished with the ghost number 18.

“You just have to play well here. If you’re a little off, it definitely magnifies where you’re wrong,” McIlroy said. “It’s a bit of a mystery. I have been coming here for several years, and it seems to me that it is easier than in others. It’s just a tough golf course and you don’t hit the fairways and you have a job to do for you.”

McIlroy missed a hit at the Players and looks to the Masters

Full The Players Championship points

Hitting the fairways was a problem for McIlroy—he only managed to find 13 of 28 fairways through 36 holes—but a bigger problem was his play on the green. He finished 125^th number of hits scored: putting and 141^st. in hits received: around the green.

McIlroy acknowledged outside pressure as he was the most outspoken supporter of the PGA Tour in the ongoing split with LIV Golf and the director of players on the Tour policy board, which approved sweeping changes to next year’s schedule during a seven-hour meeting in front of Arnold last week. Palmer Invitational took their toll.

“I would like to be a golfer again, yes. Look, it’s been a busy couple of weeks, and to be honest, it’s been six or eight months of hard work. But, as I said at the beginning of the week, now everything is kind of announced and the wheels are set in motion, so obviously everything should calm down from now on, ”he said.

McIlroy’s next start will be the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, followed by the Masters. Before that, he said he plans to make a reconnaissance trip to the Augusta National next week to prepare for the first major tournament of the year.