AVONDALE, La. – It took 90 minutes longer than it should have, but Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry put themselves in contention to win the Zurich Classic for the second consecutive year.
McIlroy said Friday following a disappointing finish to the team’s second round that they needed to get to 20 under after Saturday’s four-ball session to have any chance of defending their title, and they were two better than that, posting a 61 to move to 22 under and within two shots of the lead.
“I feel like we played pretty well today. There was a lot of holes where both of us had chances,” Lowry said. “We went out and we did what we had to do. We knew we were going to have to go out and shoot a really low score today. There’s not much wind out there, and the course is fairly gettable, and in four-balls you want to be shooting at least 10 under.”
The round was highlighted by a 30-foot eagle putt on the 18th hole following a 90-minute weather delay. Play was suspended just after McIlroy hit his second shot at the par-5 closing hole from 260 yards to set up the walk-off.
“I wasn’t concerned so much because I’d say the first two-thirds of the putt was sort of downhill, so there was never really concern of getting the ball to the hole,” said McIlroy, who is playing for the first time since winning the Masters and completing the career Grand Slam. “It was just a matter of picking the right line and just starting it on that. It was sort of quite a comfortable putt, a little bit of left to right early, a bit of right to left at the end, overall not a ton of swing in it. A great way to finish.”
It was an even more impressive finish for the Northern Irishman considering the length of the delay.
“I think the secret is not thinking about it in those 90 minutes,” McIlroy said. “We had a bit of lunch and we were watching some highlights from last year and talking about where we’re going to go for dinner tonight. The last thing on my mind during the delay was the putt, and then once I got back out there, I sort of concentrated on it and made sure I did what I needed to do and just a bonus for it to go in.”
McIlroy and Lowry were two shots behind Andrew Novak and Ben Griffin, who had just made the turn when play was halted.