Rory McIlroy ‘not far away’ after final start before Ryder Cup

Last weekend in Ireland, Rory McIlroy slipped to a T-16 showing, though as McIlroy has since argued, that’s “not a fair reflection of how I actually played.” Four water balls in the final round would back that up.

A week later, McIlroy ended up higher on the BMW PGA Championship leaderboard, tying for seventh by the time the last putt was holed Sunday evening at Wentworth following a brief weather delay.

McIlroy began the week 72-71, 1 under after 36 holes, but he kicked things into gear by finding more fairways, and a few more holed putts led to a 67-65 weekend. McIlroy’s Sunday round featured a 4-over-through-four-holes start and just one bogey. He did par each of the back-to-back closing par-5s, showing some frustration after failing to make birdie form the fairway at No. 17, but overall, he was encouraged by the result.

“It’s something nice to build off,” McIlroy told reporters Sunday evening. “If I had went home on Friday night here, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to feel better about my game.”

McIlroy revealed that he plans to stay on this side of the pond for the next week to practice and prepare for the Ryder Cup. McIlroy didn’t mention, however, the bachelor party in Mykonos that he previously said was on his schedule in the leadup to this year’s matches at Marco Simone, only that he will “get some really good work in Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday before heading to Rome.”

“I don’t want to get too excited, there’s still nearly two weeks to go before we tee it up on the Friday of the Ryder Cup,” McIlroy added. “… I’m not far away. There’s a couple things, more so my misses. My good swings are good swings, and I can hit good shots. Just managing the misses and just making sure that there’s not a lot of them in there. … I think what I did well over the weekend, as well, was playing away from those misses and knowing if I was going to miss it, I was going to miss it in the right spot. Managed my game better, but it would be nice to go to Rome without those misses.”