McIlroy well poised to deliver in FedEx Cup

Rory McIlroy doesn’t have to win this week’s Tour Championship to pick up the massive FedEx Cup bonus of $10 million (€7.65m) bonus but he still has a lot of work to do if he is to leave East Lake, Atlanta, with golf’s richest prize tomorrow night.

The 23 year-old finished yesterday’s second round with a 68 for a three under par total of 137 to wind up four behind leader Jim Furyk. McIlroy is nicely poised going into one of the biggest week-ends in his young life. It was his 10th successive score under 70 on some of the toughest courses in the US and was a creditable effort given his ball striking was not all that he would have wanted.

Furyk momentarily appeared at the top of the FedEx rankings when he completed the first nine holes yesterday in 29 and had nine threes on his card through the 11th, seven of them in a row. But he faltered over the closing stretch to sign for a 64 and a seven under total of 133 that pushed him a couple clear of his closest pursuers, England’s Justin Rose and fellow American Bo Van Pelt.

The good news for McIlroy is that one of his four main rivals for the bonus, Nick Watney, has played himself out of contention and indeed props up the leaderboard on nine over par. Phil Mickelson, McIlroy’s playing partner yesterday, had another typically up and down day, mixing the good with the downright poor. He had to settle for a 71 for even par 140 and he, too, has a long way to go to displace McIlroy at the head of the FedEx rankings.

The bonus money is McIlroy’s should he win the tournament or finish ahead of Tiger Woods, Mickelson and Brandt Snedeker. Woods was not at his best yesterday and ran up a double bogey at the 8th, leaving himself with a deal of ground to make up over the closing holes. Typical of the winner of 14 major championships, he stuck to his task and with a couple of holes still to play, Tiger stood three over for the tournament and within four of leader Furyk with three to play.

If Rory does eventually depart with the riches tomorrow, he will look back at the miraculous escape yesterday at the par 4 10th. His hooked tee shot looked sure to fly out of bounds until hitting a fence and coming to rest in a cluster of 60 foot high trees.

However, when McIlroy arrived at his ball, he discovered to his delight that it had ended in “ground under repair” and he was allowed a free drop that afforded him a clear view of the green. He celebrated by hitting his second shot to 10 feet and while he missed the birdie putt, knew fell well that he had got out of jail big time. The 515 yards, par 5 15th is playing the easiest on the 7,319 course on the outskirts of Atlanta and McIlroy reduced it to a drive, five iron and 25 foot putt for an eagle 3.

“I got off to a shaky start and made some good putts before getting away with a poor drive at the 10th,” he said. “A course like this will give you a very bunched leaderboard but I’m very happy going into the weekend.” Confirming his home outside of Belfast was for sale, McIlroy stressed he had “no intention of cutting his ties with his homeland, I have decided to do so because I may be spending no more than two weeks in the year in Northern Ireland. When I’m there, I can stay with my parents.”

* Pádraig Harrington ends a three-week spell away from tournament golf when he seeks a third victory in the Dunhill Links tournament at St Andrews on October 7 before moving on the following week to the Portugal Masters at Vilamoura. Harrington shot a 10 under par 62 at the Algarve venue in the 2009 event when finishing third behind Lee Westwood.