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Rory McIlroy’s second-round 70 at the 2024 Dubai Invitational may not look like his opening 62 on paper, but the world No. 2 was not far off from his Thursday effort. Standing at 10 under through 36 holes, McIlroy commands a two-stroke lead over Yannik Paul and Jeff Winther heading into the weekend.
The margin could have been even wider for McIlroy, who started his day with birdies on Nos. 3-4 to quickly reach 11 under for the tournament. He seemed to be on cruise control up until the par-3 8th, where disaster ultimately struck. Hitting his tee shot into the water hazard lining the front of the green, McIlroy dropped on a forward tee to then play his third. His third followed the fate of his first, and the 34-year-old was left playing his fifth with an iron still in hand. He went onto card a quadruple-bogey 7 and drop to 7 under.
“I think if I look at the other 17 holes that I played, I played very, very well again,” McIlroy said. “Hit some good iron shots. Played not too dissimilarly to the way I played yesterday. I maybe holed a couple more putts yesterday but the conditions were getting a little trickier. The wind was up, greens were firm and I had a couple of miscues on the eighth hole.”
McIlroy bounced back by taking advantage of the par-5 scoring opportunities on the back nine. Easy birdies on Nos. 10 and 13 got him back to even par on the day before a bonus birdie arrived from just inside 30 feet on the par-3 16th to extend his lead to two. A pair of pars on the difficult 17th and 18th holes cemented another round in the red for the Northern Irishman.
“The tenth was big,” McIlroy continued. “I had a chance to bounce back on nine that I missed but ten was big. The two shots into 13 were big, too. And to…
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Source : cbssports
