Rory Mcilroy and Scottie Scheffler are willing to embrace a tougher TPC Sawgrass test after they went into the quarrel by running the weekend at the player championship.
Mcilroy followed a 67 opening round with a four under 68 Friday morning, where he briefly held solo lead in front of two Bogeys in his last four holes threw it back to nine and two after club leaders, Akshay Bhatia and Min Woo Lee.
Northern Ireland was playing in the Marquee group along with Xander Schauffle and World No 1 Scheffler, who is in five under and six shocks from the supremacy of the road for the second consecutive year, as he follows a three historic peat on players.
Winds are expected to be strengthened over the weekend and bring gusts over 30 miles per hour to later beginners over the next two rounds, with Scheffler hoping that changing conditions can help him climb to the manager’s table.
“It will be pretty challenging this weekend,” Scheffler told reporters after his second round 70. “The golf course was definitely the first two days and I was unable to use it as I would hope.
Scottie Scheffler posted five birds and three bogeys during his second round
“Going tomorrow and Sunday, (there will be) eventually there is any possibility there by changing conditions. The wind moves around a good amount here.
“If you go to like a course like where the open championships are usually, you can play the ball on the ground. About this place you can’t really. Sometimes you can feel like you are thinking a little by the wind, and hope you think right more often than you are wrong.”
Mcilroy is looking to become only the seventh player to win numerous editions of players, after claiming the victory in the 2019 competition, with the World No. 2, already enjoying the wind success in AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-AM at the beginning of this season.
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Highlights from the last round of AT&T Pebble Beach pro-am, where Rory Mcilroy impressed to claim a two-shot victory in his first PGA Tour appearance of the year
“I’m waiting for her,” Mcilroy said about the near test. “I think it will be really important to try to fly your ball and keep it under the tree line.
“I think that after getting over the tree line here it can start to be hit by it (the wind). It swings a little, but I think when the wind is so strong, it will be a little more stable. This course is quite challenging, but with a breeze like it, I’m excited about that challenge.”
Mcilroy found only four straight roads away during his opening round, but without major improvements on Friday, where he entered his first hole of the day and made six birds in his first 11 holes.
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Rory Mcilroy entered for Birdie in the tenth -tenth hole, his opening of the day, during his second round
“Much better,” Mcilroy added. “Hit him much better from tee. I think I hit more roads in six holes today than I did in the 18th yesterday.
“He got it in the game much better and then from there he was able to give myself some opportunities and obviously to make some early birds. It couldn’t go on so much on the nine back, but it was much better from tee.”
Rory Mcilroy is looking to close the gap in Scottie Scheffler at the top of the world rankings
Schauffle completed the Marque group and continued to be not impressed with his performance, only in his second event from the injury, with the twice-sample sample of a bird with the last hole to save one-on 71 years old and gave himself a chance to make the weekend.
When asked about what was okay with his game, Schauffle said after his second round: “Everything. Not hitting enough, to dip the chips, to lose every good road, to hit the right roads to lose the greens.
“It is pretty heavy, to be completely honest. So if I can get this cut, that would be good. But the game feels very bad. I’m not sure if it is something related to configuration or something I’m not doing or not doing in the course in the range, but it feels very bad.”
Xander Schauffle can go above Rory Mcilroy in the second in the world, depending on the results this week
Scheffler showing cracks in his game?
Nick Dougherty of Sky Sports Golf, talking about Sky Sports News about the start of Scheffler and his hopes to win players for a third year in a row:
“He has been inviolable, I hate to say it, almost Tiger-Esque, for a year Tiger-Esque. No one has been to that standard since Tiger was in his pump.
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Look how Scottie Scheffler overcome damage issues in 2024 in the player championship to defend his title
“Nine wins last year including that gold in the Olympic Games. He won the masters, he won this as well as fashionable back-back. If he won this would be three wins to players, which no one has done other than Jack Nicklaus Great.
“However, there are probably some cracks that appear, of course in all the first events. He was a slow starter of his season, after indeed, it was really good, but it has not yet been Pinnacle Scottie Scheffler.
“If he catches fire at the weekend he is more than capable of finishing work. So far, although he looked a little tired, a little disappointment on his face – small things but signs we didn’t see last year when he was growing up.”
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