ORLANDO – Rory McIlroy sauntered into scoring, let out a big breath and said, “I can’t wait to see what these greens are like on Sunday. Wooo!”
McIlroy sighed, not a sigh of a defeat, but of a man who had run out of patience after two bogeys in the final four holes left him shooting even-par 72 at Bay Hill Lodge and Club on a day when the greens became firm and glassy as the sun baked them extra crispy. Asked just how devilish the putting surfaces became compared to recent years when only 4 under won the title in 2020, McIlroy said, “It’s up there. I don’t think it’s maybe quite as devilish as the weekend the last couple years because the fairways are sort of soft. But the greens got – those are the sort of greens you expect to see late on a Sunday, not late on a Friday.”
One day after shooting to the top of the leaderboard with a 65, McIlroy didn’t feel as if he had played seven strokes worse. He opened with a bogey at the first hole, but bounced back with birdies at Nos. 4, 7 and 8, the latter of which he canned a 48-foot putt from the fringe.
