Rory McIlroy bounced back from an awful first round at the Memorial Tournament to keep himself in contention for the title.
McIlroy carded a first round of 72 which included a triple bogey on the 18th. This ironically after tournament host Jack Niklaus had commented on the Northern Irishman's lapses in concentration.
Niklaus, in the pre-tournament press conference said, "I don’t know whether his is a constant lack of being able to keep that concentration for the whole thing or not, because sometimes he (goes) par, par, par, double, eight.
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"He does that sometimes".
It wasn't quite an eight that proved to be McIlroy's first round undoing. A seven was enough to undo any good work on the par four 18th. His drive finished in the rough and the ensuing hack cost him further as his final hole descended into chaos.
"I felt good about everything that I did yesterday,” McIlroy said after carding six birdies and two bogeys in a second round of 68.
“I got one bad break on 18 with that ball finishing on the bank of the bunker. So I really feel like I’m one shot out of leading this golf tournament.
“(If) that rolls down into the bunker, hopefully I’m able to hit it on the green and make a four and instead of standing here at four under I would be at seven under and feeling really good about everything.
“I felt like I did a lot of really good things yesterday and I did a lot of good things right, so I can’t let that one sort of unlucky break sort of hide the fact that everything else was working pretty well.”
At four under par McIlroy was three shots off the early clubhouse lead held by Hideki Matsuyama, the former Masters champion carding a superb bogey-free 65 to lead by one from Patrick Cantlay and David Lipsky.
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