Rory McIlroy made an 8 on his fifth hole Friday at TPC Toronto, free-falling down the RBC Canadian Open leaderboard on his way to a missed cut.
McIlroy followed that quadruple-bogey debacle with four bogeys and a double in shooting 8-over 78. He finished at 9 over par, with only four players posting worse scores through 36 holes in Ontario.
Cameron Champ (66) leads the way at 12 under with Andrew Putnam (62) two back. A pair of Canadians are in a group at 9 under. That includes Nick Taylor (65), whose playoff victory in 2023 is memorialized in the tournament logo, and Richard Lee (64).
This was McIlroy’s final start before next week’s U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club, where McIlroy got in a practice round Monday before heading to Canada — for a short stay.
“I’m going to have to do a lot of practice and a lot of work over the weekend at home,” McIlroy said, “and try to at least have a better idea of where my game is going into next week.”
Particularly his driver. McIlroy, whose driver at the PGA Championship was deemed non-conforming, put a new one in his bag this week and the two didn’t jibe. He was 151st in the 153-man field in strokes gained: off the tee in Round 2; though, he was also outside the top 125 in every notable strokes-gained category Friday.
“Yeah, of course it concerns me. You don’t want to shoot high scores like the one I did today. Still, I felt like I came here obviously with a new driver thinking that that sort of was going to be good and solve some of the problems off the tee, but it didn’t,” he said.
“Obviously going to Oakmont next week, what you need to do more than anything else there is hit fairways. Still sort of searching for the sort of missing piece off the tee. Obviously for me, when I get that part of the game clicking, then everything falls into place for me. Right now that isn’t. Yeah, that’s a concern going into next week.”
After opening in 1-over 71 and parring his first four holes Friday, McIlroy hit his tee shot in the right rough at the par-4 fifth. From 134 yards, he launched his approach shot so far past the spectators around the green that they didn’t notice it soar over their heads.
McIlroy hit a provisional, which also flew the green, and ended up needing to put that ball into play. Hitting his fifth shot (including the penalty stroke) from behind the green, he blasted his chip over the front. He finally reached the putting surface with his sixth shot but two-putted from 8 feet for the quad.
McIlroy turned in 5-over 40 and then started his back nine in bogey-double-par-bogey. In danger of shooting in the 80s, he played his final four holes in 1 under. The 78 was McIlroy’s worst score since shooting the same number in the first round of last year’s Open Championship.
“I went back to a 44-inch driver this week to try and get something that was a little more in control and get something I could get more in play. But if I’m gonna miss fairways, I’d rather have the ball speed and miss the fairway than not,” McIlroy said.
This was McIlroy’s debut at TPC Toronto. He has twice won this tournament at different venues.