RORY MCILROY TOLD reporters he was close, so close, to a return to form and his third round at the Deutsche Bank Championship seems to have backed up his words.
The Northern Irishman recorded nine birdies in his excellent round of 64. The ‘silly mistakes’ McIlroy talked about last Thursday have not gone away completely — a double bogey on 14 was the only blot on his card but a major one at that.
The round shot McIroy up to -8 and saw him bypass his fellow countryman, Graeme McDowell [-6]. The sobering note on a day of great positivity came from a cursory glance at the leaderboard. Sergio Garcia is in sparkling form and leads on -19. Henrik Stenson, his nearest challenger, is two shots back.
McIroy, who won this tournament during a particularly hot streak last season, is hoping for another round in the mid 60s and a top 10 finish. “I played pretty similar to the way I did the first two days,” he said. “I just scored better. I took advantage of some good shots in close. Holed a few more putts and birdie the holes that you need to birdie out there, the par fives, the short par fours.”
The world number four was boosted by the presence of Caroline Wozniacki. The Dane tennis star was dumped out of the US Open at the weekend but put her disappointment to one side to cheer on her boyfriend.
“I persuaded her to in the [weather] delay to come up here for a night,” McIroy explained. “It was nice. After this we’ll go back to New York for a few days and hang out, which will be nice.”
The weather delays led to an early start for McIlroy’s final round and he received the second unfortunate wake-up call of the day [the first being a phone call at his hotel room] when he double bogeyed the first hole to drop back to -6.
