McIlroy Hits 11 Bags Of Range Balls Finding His Game To Defeat Griffin

3 years ago by Comments Off on McIlroy Hits 11 Bags Of Range Balls Finding His Game To Defeat Griffin

Rory McIlroy revealed he hit 11 bags of range balls following his humbling round one loss at the hands of Ian Poulter to come out on day two to defeat American Lanto Griffin 4 & 3 at the WGC – Dell Match-Play Championship in Austin, Texas.

McIlroy now faces Aussie Cam Smith in a must-win third round match after Smith lost to Poulter 1-down and for Poulter to be undefeated in his two matches.

Whoever wins the McIlroy -v- Smith match will need for Griffin to beat the undefeated Poulter to force a sudden-death play-off to decide the winner of Group 11.

Rory McIlroy restores some dented pride with a 4 & 3 win over American Lanto Griffin on day two of the WGC- Dell Match-Play Championship

McIlroy was never behind in his match against Griffin who clearly strugged but a win is a won and it handed McIlroy a much-needed confiedence boost after his first round demolition.

“Winning my match keeps me in the championship and gives me a hope tomorrow,”said McIlroy.

“I have to now play Cam and whoever wins that match is going to have to rely on Poults doing either of us a favour.

“I do feel the scoreline did not match-up with how I played but I played solid and while Lanto didn’t play his best, I am just happy to still be in with a chance for the weekend.”

McIlroy had spent a considerable time following his loss to Poulter endeavouring to get to grips with his badly haemorrhaging game so much so it was confirmed he went through 11 bags of practice balls on the Austin range Wednesday afternoon.

“I think as everyone knows who’s played this game, it’s a very difficult game at times, and I feel like it’s testing me a little more than it has done in the last few years,” he said.

“I feel the only way to get through it is to put your head down and work on the right things and sort of trust the process of maybe put in the hard work, and my dad always said, you get out of it what you put into it, and that’s the attitude that I’m sort of bringing with me to the course each and every day.

“There’s going to be some good days, there’s going to be some bad, but I feel like I’m on the right path.”

McIlroy went into the second-round robin match in the Euro 8.8m clearly looking to restore his severely dented pride following his thumping at the hands of ‘Poults’.

And McIlroy quickly buried any lingering demons from a day earlier in launching an opening 351-yard drive to set-up an 8-inch birdie ‘3’ putt and go 1-up.

McIlroy then went 2-up holing a 25-footer for par at the par-4 second and in in the bat of any eyelid, the World No. 11 was 3-up after just three holes in paring the third and with Griffin taking a second straight bogey..

It took Griffin six holes with a birdie ‘4’ to a McIlroy bogey to get back to 2-down before holing a ‘bomb’ of his own, a 25-footer birdie at the par-3 seventh hole.

McIlroy regained the ascendancy winning the eighth thanks to a four-foot birdie but the 32-year-old Californian and winner of the 2019 Houston Open was not going away.

He two-putted the par-4 ninth hole from 32-feet for par, and after McIlroy three-putted from 28-feet for bogey, for Griffin to now be back to 1-down.

McIlroy grabbed only the fifth birdie of the match at the 10th in holing a four-footer for a ‘3 and helped by Griffin being well passed the green and recording his third bogey of their match.

McIlroy won 12 and 13 to be 4-up and from thereon it was a matter of when McIlroy would end the match and he did that on 15 with a par.



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