Rory McIlroy Catches Fire At Quail Hollow And Lands Back In Contention

Rory McIlroy is looking to repeat history following a Saturday third-round resurgence in the Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow. Rory’s tournament so far is very reminiscent of his 2010 win at the same event.

“It does bring back memories”, McIlroy said. “In 2010, I bogeyed the 18th hole on Saturday to shoot 66, so I had a putt on 18 to go one better. So that’s why I gave a fist pump. I was sort of thinking of that.”

McIlroy started this year’s event playing well enough, shooting a 69 in the first round, putting him 3-under par. His score was good enough to put McIlroy among the leaders after opening play of the tournament, but Friday proved to be far less successful for Rory according to Bleacher Report. McIlroy fell 52 spots on the leader board by afternoon’s end, as he seemed to struggle throughout the round, shooting a four-over par 76. Rory went from one of the leaders to one of the forgotten about as quickly as he possibly could have.

Saturday turned out to be much better for McIlroy, and also put him back in a position where he could possibly make a run for the title on Sunday according to CBS Sports. Rory made eight birdies with only one bogey, shooting 65 for the round and bringing him back to 6-under for the tournament. Going into the Sunday, Rory is 7 shots off of the leader J.B. Holmes.

In 2010 Rory shot a 66 and a 62 in the final two rounds in order to win the event. After Friday’s abysmal round, McIlroy was 10 shots back, exactly as he was four years ago. There’s a possibility that Rory will need to shoot around a 62 in the final round again if he hopes to earn another victory at Quail Hollow.

“I don’t want to get too used to that at this tournament, I would rather be up there after two days, but, yeah, it was good.”

McIlroy dropped out of pro golf’s top ten players in the world this week, falling to number 11. Rory hasn’t won an event since the Australian Open in 2013, and his 2012 victories are about to begin falling off of the ranking rotation, meaning he could fall even further down the rankings if he doesn’t pick up some victories soon.

“If I’m still within 4 or 5 shots going into tomorrow, I think I’ll have a chance,” McIlroy told ESPN. “We’ll see what happens.”