Rory McIlroy's Memphis woes in FedEx Cup drive
Rory McIlroy’s hopes of extending his record haul of FedEx Cup titles suffered a blow yesterday with a three-over round which put him outside the top-50 cut-off point for play-off progress.
Northern Ireland’s McIlroy entered the first of three events on the play-off push with talk around him of a record-extending fourth FedEx Cup success – but a Friday 73 to follow on from Thursday’s 68 resulted in tied 58th going into the weekend on one-over overall.
McIlroy suffered double-bogey blues on the third hole then recovered with back-to-back birdies to sit back even for the day in the FedEx St Jude Championship at TPC Southwind.
But bogey woes over the next two successive holes and a par to close the front nine left McIlroy two over entering the back stretch.
A string of pars up followed before another bogey on the 16th added to his frustration.
Due to the threat of thunderstorms this morning, organisers have cited delays to starting times for the third round from 3.45PM (UK time).
McIlroy will tee off with Adam Hadwin and Thomas Detry at 5.13PM (UK time) on Saturday.
PGA Tour players in the top 70 of FedEx Cup points across the campaign entered Memphis this week, with the field reduced to 50 for the second event – from next Thursday in Colorado, the BMW Championship.
Then the remaining 30 enter the East Lake-hosted Tour Championship meeting from August 29-September 1.
McIlroy claimed FedEx Cup success in 2016, 2019 and 2022 but entered this first play-off trailing world number one Scottie Scheffler by almost 3,500 points.
Scheffler sits fourth heading into the weekend on nine-under, with Denny McCarthy and Hideki Matsuyama sharing the lead on 11-under followed by Sam Burns.
“I certainly don’t want to sit up here and belittle my achievements at all this year and what I’ve done, but at the same time I expect a certain standard from myself,” McIlroy said leading into this week’s opening round. “I’ve won a couple of times. I’ve had an opportunity to win a few more times than that and haven’t been able to get over the line. So I would have liked to have added a couple more to that win column.”