It’s been two years since Rory McIlroy has done both of these things on the PGA Tour
Rory McIlroy could get used to this type of flawless golf.
A day after notching five birdies as part of a bogey-free 67 at The Summit Club, McIlroy again kept the blemishes off the scorecard while opening up the scoring floodgates. He totaled eight birdies and a closing eagle to fire 10-under 62 and move into contention at the CJ Cup.
McIlroy’s 62 marked his best score on Tour since he shot the same number in the third round of the 2019 WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational, and it included a stretch of five straight birdies, at Nos. 3-7.
“I played an eight-hole stretch yesterday in even par, I made eight pars in row. It was nice to finish with a birdie last night,” McIlroy said. “Then today I played a stretch of golf, played nine holes in 6 under and all of a sudden you feel a little better about yourself. Yeah, I mean the big thing is I’ve played the last two days keeping it in the short stuff and I haven’t made any bogeys. That’s huge.
“I said to [my caddie] Harry [Diamond] yesterday, I can’t remember the last time I played a round of golf without a bogey and now I’ve played two rounds in a row, so that’s nice to see.”
Full-field scores from the CJ Cup at Summit
McIlroy’s last bogey-free round wasn’t all that long ago. He shot 7-under 65 in the third round of the BMW Championship in August. However, it’s been almost two years since the last time he recorded consecutive flawless rounds. He shot 67-68 in the last two rounds of the 2019 WGC-HSBC Champions while not carding anything worse than par on the weekend (Nov. 2-3, 2019) at Sheshan International in Shanghai.
McIlroy won that week. He’ll enter Sunday at 19 under, two shots back of leader Rickie Fowler.
“I just wanted to go out there and play a good round of golf,” McIlroy said. “I knew that I was capable of shooting lower than I have shot the last couple of days, but you never know. Every hole basically on this course is a birdie chance, so you just try to put it in play, give yourself a putt at it on the green and go from there.”