‘I wish that was an excuse’: Rory McIlroy explains what went wrong at Truist
That wasn’t a figment of the imagination.
Rory McIlroy wound up a little gimpy during his final round, walking around Quail Hollow Club with a noticeable limp in his stride. Turns out he had a slight medical issue he was dealing with.
“Yeah, I’ve got a blister on my pinky toe on my right foot, but it’s underneath my nail,” McIlroy said. “I can’t really get to it, so it’s a little sore. But I’ll be all right.”
McIlroy couldn’t get the best of the 7,583-yard course this time around. In fact, it was quite the opposite.
The guy who has won the event on four previous occasions and boasts the most (26) sub-70 rounds on the course didn’t get it going enough after Saturday’s 4-over-par 75. Although McIlroy fired a 4-under 67 in the final round, he was never truly in contention to claim his fifth crown in Charlotte, finishing in a tie for 19th after posting a 5-under 279.
“I got off to a good start, but I hit the ball better,” McIlroy said. “I started to hit it left (Saturday) with everything. I spent a good bit of time on the range (Saturday) night just trying to straighten it out. The range this week, the wind is predominantly been off the left, so I think when you hit a lot of balls in a left-to-right wind you start to aim a little bit left, your club face can get a little bit closed at impact just to try to counteract that wind.
“So, hitting balls the last five or six days in that left-to-right wind on the range, I just started to miss some left on the course. So, I was trying to figure it out a little bit on the range (Saturday) night, which I felt like I did and I hit the ball much better.”
McIlroy refused to cite the blister, which first cropped up on Friday, as a reason for his performance.
“No, not at all,” McIlroy said. “I wish that was an excuse, but absolutely not.”
Another close call for Rickie Fowler
While scrambling on the front nine, doing whatever possible to hang with the leaders, Rickie Fowler thought it was possible.
He started pondering his chances to win and liked them.
“I made a nice birdie on 7, I had seen at that point that Alex (Fitzpatrick) had gotten off to a little bit of a rough start,” Fowler said. “No one had really gone anywhere, and so I was only a few back at that point. Making birdie on 9 to turn at 5-under, that’s kind of when it was like, ‘All right, we’ve got nine holes in front of us, let’s go have some fun.’
“And there was a lot of good stuff. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but hit a lot of quality golf shots. It would have been nice to have that one on 16.”
Fowler missed a five-foot birdie putt on No. 16.
Fowler, who won the event here in 2012, finished second behind Kristopher Reitan, two strokes off the pace at 13-under 271. Fowler had a solid weekend, including firing an 8-under 63 on Friday. That marked his lowest score in 50 career rounds at Quail Hollow Club.
Still seeking his first victory since capturing the 2023 Rocket Mortgage Classic nearly two years ago, Fowler is encouraged by where his game currently lies.
“Obviously, you have to have the belief, but then getting the feedback from hitting the actual shots and executing what you’re trying to do,” Fowler said. “So, those feed off of each other. I feel like I’ve been able to do a good job of committing and so that all works together.”
Alex Fitzpatrick falters down stretch
With less than a half-dozen holes remaining, Alex Fitzpatrick was right there in contention.
Fitzpatrick’s final round sat at even par through No. 13 following successive birdies. But after parring the next three holes, Fitzpatrick wound up with a double bogey on No. 17 and finished three strokes off the pace with a 12-under 272.
“I felt pretty good,” Fitzpatrick said. “I felt like I was hitting it well, just I felt like things kind of didn’t go my way. I was in a divot on 2, something in my back swing on 3, and then having to chip out and three-putting was frustrating. Then missing a couple short ones just kind of killed my momentum to try and get back to what I started with on the front nine.
“I was super excited to go out there. I feel like my expectations are low just because of how amazing the past four weeks have been for me. So, I’m just trying to enjoy it and I think that’s kind of why my emotions are all over the place at the moment.”
