Rory McIlroy keeps counsel again after US PGA hopes hit by driving struggles
Five weeks after becoming only the sixth player to have won all four major titles, Rory McIlroy completed another ‘grand slam’ in the US PGA Championship.
McIlroy declined to speak to the media for the fourth day in succession after compiling a final round of 72 to finish three over par at Quail Hollow, a venue where he has won four times on the PGA Tour.
At the conclusion of his round, McIlroy was ranked tied 69th for driving accuracy out of the 74 players who made the halfway cut, a reflection perhaps of having to replace his driver head on Tuesday after the club was deemed to be non-confirming.
Tournament officials did not name McIlroy but insisted on Saturday that they did not have “any concerns about player intent” after the news about the world number two’s driver broke on Friday evening.
The PGA of America’s chief championships officer, Kerry Haigh, confirmed that the USGA had been undertaking club testing as requested, with around a third of the field’s equipment tested at random.
“Finding driver heads that have crept over the line of conformance is not an unusual occurrence, especially for clubs that are hit thousands of times over a long period of time,” Haigh said. “The results are kept confidential to protect players, who are unaware the club has fallen out of conformance and are not responsible for it falling out of conformance, other than hitting the club thousands of times.
“Players are simply asked to change heads if necessary and all do without issue.
“To publicly identify players whose club did not conform can lead to that player being questioned unnecessarily. Neither the USGA nor the PGA of America have any concerns about player intent.”
Xander Schauffele ended the defence of his US PGA Championship as he started it, making a double bogey on the 16th hole and complaining about conditions.
Schauffele and 54-hole leader Scottie Scheffler were the two highest-profile players to speak out about the decision not to allow preferred lies in Thursday’s first round, despite torrential rain disrupting practice earlier in the week.
Both men blamed “mud balls” for hooking their second shots to the 16th into the water in round one and the same hole cost Schauffele another six on Sunday, although this time his ire was directed at the 17th instead.
“After kind of a decent round going, the goal was to try to backdoor a top 10,” said the Open champion, who had covered his first 15 holes in five under par, including a chip-in eagle on the eighth. “I got greedy on 16, that one was on me. No mud on that ball unfortunately. Hit that in the water (from a fairway bunker).
“Then 17 is a pretty ridiculous set-up today. That will be one to keep an eye on. You have, I don’t know, like a 10-foot window to land it to keep it somewhere like pin high.”
After dropping a shot on the 17th Schauffele did at least birdie the 18th to complete a 68, his only sub-par round of the week.
“Yeah, I’d like to keep it going,” Schauffele said. “If we had four more days stacked up right now, I feel like I’d have a pretty good chance.
“Just kind of was in better form, and then I had a few things go awry in my swing and made my approach play pretty bad. Just kind of lost control of the golf ball there midweek, unfortunately.
“Just didn’t have enough to score well, but I feel like I’m playing a lot better than what I’m doing. So just got to hang tough.”