ST. LOUIS — Rory McIlroy ended his back nine at Bellerive Country Club on Friday a lot like how he started his front — with a whole lot of pars.
McIlroy, who shared part of the lead with four others after the opening round, made par on six consecutive holes on his front nine and then followed that up with another nine straight on the back.
He carded a 1-under 69 as a result, with birdies at a pair of front nine par-4 (Nos. 7 and 9) and a bogey at the par-5 eighth.
“Because the greens are so big — you put a pin on a left, for example, you put the pin on the left side of the green on 15 yesterday, and then you put it all the way up on right, like it makes it a completely different golf hole, or at least a completely different approach shot,” McIlroy explained the day-over-day difference to reporters after his round.
“So they can play around with the hole locations here a lot, which makes the holes play a lot differently, for sure,” he added. “I think it is just because the greens are so big and you can tuck them away in little corners they start to play differently depending on where they are.”
While McIlroy lost his share of the lead during the second round, he remains in contention, five shots back of Wyndham Clark’s 36-hole lead.
McIlroy’s best moment Friday was perhaps his last par at the 18th hole.
He found a bunker off the tee and said he was trying to take a little bit off a gap wedge on his approach shot but the stroke “just got it a little bit heavy.”
“I didn’t even know what the yardage was [on the third shot], but it’s one of those in between ones where you’re trying to eyeball it and pitch it somewhere between the front edge of the green and the hole, and thankfully it came out the way I wanted it to and it was a nice par save,” he said.
The key difference in McIlroy’s scoring was the eighth hole and the back nine.
He gained a stroke with a birdie on the course’s longest hole Thursday, while putting together a 4-under 31 on the back nine compared to a 35 a day later.
“These big modern sort of ballparks that I feel like the BMW Championship goes to a lot of them, PGA Championship seems to go to a lot of them,” replied McIlroy to a question comparing Bellerive to Quail Hollow and Valhalla, courses he’s both won on during his career.
“And they’re typically courses that I’ve played better on throughout my career,” he added. “Length is obviously a big factor. When I see golf courses like this, I like it.”
