On a day the defending champion, Jordan Spieth, described as “about as benign as you’re going to get out here” after shooting 65 for a share of the 54-hole lead, Rory McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood failed to match their Friday heroics but are not quite done yet.
Sunday will be a wildly different killing field, with 20mph winds forecast, and both local heroes left the course on Saturday night four shots back at five under, knowing they are at least in shape to contend.
“I would have felt a bit better a couple of shots closer,” McIlroy said. “But I have to have a chance, with higher winds forecast. I left myself with a few longer putts today. I wasn’t particularly happy with my driving on Thursday but felt a lot better today. I want to get the driver in my hand tomorrow. Make as many birdies, maybe not as many mistakes.”
Inevitably, they arrived with the clever tabloid billing of Fleetwood Mac – Tommy from Liverpool, Rory from County Down. They were not in perfect harmony but they found some rhythm here and there.
They were not paired but they were one grouping apart near the bottom of the draw. McIlroy was just ahead, alongside the young American Xander Schauffele, while Fleetwood had the American veteran Pat Perez for company in the second last group of the day. It was a high-performance quartet and, at various stages, they all rattled the lead.
McIlroy had his early struggles, dropping a shot at the 4th, before immediately repairing the damage, exploding out of a bunker on the 6th to get back to four under, and grabbing another birdie at the 7th.
He then crunched a driver more than 350 yards but could not cash in. A long, solid birdie putt at 10 inched by, too. He was not that far away from beating his blues on the green.
He opened his shoulders on the 11th, as well, choked his short chip but made birdie to go six under. The shoulder muscles got a further workout on the 12th, as his huge drive rolled to 343 yards, and was seriously irritated when he made a bogey from a promising position, his putter going cold again. He followed that with a truly horrible birdie attempt at 13 and looked to have lost concentration under pressure.
His drive on 14 was estimated at 408 yards, the longest of the day in virtually windless conditions, bringing a clutch of five consecutive tee shots to 1,848 yards; phenomenal hitting on any course, with or without wind. The reward was a birdie – that would have been an eagle had the ball not done a U-turn on the rim of the hole – to return to six under, three behind Spieth at that point. He was on a decent roll, cutting another shot from his total on the 15th to own fourth place, two shots adrift of his playing partner, Schauffele, who had jumped to nine under alongside Spieth.
A blip at 16 delivered a third bogey for the day, and McIlroy looked distinctly unimpressed with someone in the gallery who disturbed his set-up before his putt. He made sure of a solid par at 17. A rotten bounce into a fairway bunker did him no favours at 18, and he found ugly greenside rough on the side of a mound in front of the gallery with an ambitious whack off the sand. An underdone chip through thick grass left him with a long putt for par when his ball rolled back into a teasing valley. He made bogey.
Fleetwood, who shot 65 on Friday, two short of his own course record, also had a mixed day of stuttering discord and wan smiles.
He picked up where he had left off, with a birdie at the 2nd, but for a worryingly long time he did not have the same glint in his eye. He had to hack his way out of a fairway bunker on the 6th and his par putt slipped by. He might have done better with a gettable birdie putt on the 10th before nailing one at 11.
A double bogey at 12, pushing him down to four under, was the sort of setback that can wreck a round as he moved closer to probably the toughest closing set in golf. On Friday, he picked up two birdies in the final six holes. He needed at least that again to restore his spirits.
On the par-three 13th, he improvised with a clipped wedge off the top of the green – which would not have pleased the greenkeeper had he ruined his surface – to go over rather than through an intrusion. But he could not avoid another bogey and slipped to three under and a tie for 20th on the board.
Struggling for consistency, he was grateful for a birdie at 14, to move back within sight of the leaders.
Finally, he found some inspiration to do the same on 15. Back-to-back birdies gave him a place in the top 10.
The closing three holes had given up just 23 birdies all day (as well as an eagle for Zander Lombard on the last). A 214-yard approach shot into a mini-gale on 17 brought a smile to his face – which widened when he sealed the birdie to go five under. A solid par rounded out a tough day.
“Disappointed,” is how he described it. “I actually played pretty good. Can’t say I drove it good. Made a mess of a couple of tee shots. A few putts go in and it’s a much better day. Walking down 18, I wanted to be one closer. If you’re there or thereabouts, you’re never quite out of it.”
As Fleetwood Mac eventually did, Tommy and Rory now have to go their own way.
