The McIlroy mojo remains frustratingly elusive at Kiawah

Rory shoots a 2-over 74 to fall outside the top 50 at +5 for the week.

GONG SOUTH: Rory McIlroy plays his shot from the seventh tee during the third round of the 2021 PGA Championship at Kiawah Island.

KIAWAH ISLAND, SOUTH CAROLINA – The winds laid down, but Rory McIlroy’s game couldn’t stand up on Saturday.

Needing to take advantage of the early calm to post a low score to have any hope of getting back in range of the PGA Championship contenders, McIlroy snapped his drive off the first tee into the hazard and could never get anything going on the Ocean Course, shooting a 2-over 74 to fall outside the top 50 at 5-over for the week.

“When you start the way I did today with a bogey and then you don't make a birdie on the second hole, you're just always trying to play catch-up,” McIlroy said. “And it's hard to on this golf course because there's very few opportunities where you can be really aggressive.” 

Even after rolling a nice 25-foot birdie in at the ninth to turn in even par for the day, McIlroy put himself in trouble off a few more tees and bogeyed 10, 11 and 15 before a rare par-5 birdie for him at 16.

“Still a little bit of work to do, not quite feeling like it's all there, and that's what this course does,” McIlroy said of his play two weeks after winning the PGA Tour event at Quail Hollow. “It exposes where you're not at your best, and certainly this week that's been off the tee.” 

Kiawah’s par-5s have proven to be a mystery to McIlroy this week. In 2012 when he won by a record eight strokes in winds that blew from the completely opposite direction as this week, McIlroy played the par-5s at the Ocean Course in a cumulative 8-under par. His lone bogey on the long holes came at the seventh hole in the second round when constant winds with gusts more than 30 miles per hour sent scores soaring to the highest field average (78.11) in PGA Championship history.

He birdied the then downwind 16th hole every day in 2012 and the downwind second three of the four days.

This year with easterly winds the first two days (and only a light breeze from the same direction Saturday), McIlroy has posted six bogeys on the par-5s offset by only three birdies – a rate of return on the most scorable holes that has prevented him from ever being a factor.

“The par-5s this week haven't been great,” he said. “I think I'm … am I 5-over for the championship? I think most of that's been the par-5s. I need to do some other things better, as well, but that certainly hasn't happened.

“At least I didn't play them in over par today, I played them in even. I just haven't played the par-5s well. Today I played them better. I got it up around the green on 2 and drew a pretty bad lie, didn't make birdie there, and then on 7, same thing, hit a decent bunker shot, just missed the putt. Then on 11 it was a sloppy bogey. It just shows you this golf course, so you miss by a little bit, and it just is so penal, and you can just get yourself in some really tricky positions. If you try to be too perfect with it, then you can make mistakes and run up some not huge numbers but you can make some mistakes.” 

McIlroy hopes to clean up a few of the little things that have cost him this week during Sunday’s final round.

“It's being a little tidier around the greens, it's hitting a few more fairways, it's taking some of your chances when you do hit good iron shots, instead of making the pars, you make the birdies,” he said. “Just getting some momentum. I just feel like I haven't had any momentum this week, and it's been hard.”