Rory McIlroy believes he may need to shoot 65 on Sunday to win a medal after he fired a bogey-free five-under 66 to go into the final round just three shots outside the top-three in the Men’s Olympic Golf Competition in Paris.
The world number three went out at Le Golf National determined to avoid the mistakes he made in opening rounds of 68 and 69.
And after starting the day six shots off the lead, he’s now just four strokes behind leaders Jon Rahm and Xander Schauffele on 10-under-par.
“The story of the first two days was the mistakes and today I went out with the mindset of trying to limit those mistakes, which I did,” said McIlroy, who is tied for sixth with world number one Scottie Scheffler (67), South Korea’s Tom Kim (69) and Belgium’s Thomas Detry (69).
“It was a really solid round of golf and puts me in contention for a medal tomorrow.”
He added: “It would have been nice to be able to squeeze a couple more shots out of the back nine.
“But I think tomorrow, depending on what the leaders do, I’m going to have to probably shoot my lowest round of the week to have a chance at a medal. That’s the goal.”
Former world number one Rahm also shot 66 and reigning Olympic champion Schauffele a 68 to lead by one stroke on 14-under-par from England’s Tommy Fleetwood, who shot 69.
Denmark’s Nicolai Hojgaard made an eagle and seven birdies in a nine-under 62 to share fourth place on 11-under with joint overnight leader Hideki Matsuyama, who shot 71.
McIlroy has work to do to catch the leaders and with just six strokes covering the top 16 on the leaderboard, he believes he may have to shoot at least six-under on Sunday to have a chance of making the podium.
“It’s amazing for the game to see all those sort the players up there,” McIlroy said of the star-studded leaderboard. “Obviously, Xander, who has had an incredible year; Scottie, the best player in the world; you’ve got Jon Rahm, some younger players; Nicolai shooting 62 today. It’s an amazing leaderboard and should be an exciting day tomorrow.”
The Holywood star birdied the first, third and ninth to turn in 33 for the third day running, then picked up further shots at the 11th and 14th before saving par from 20 feet at the 17th.
“I played the front nine in 3-under again, and walking to the 10th tee, I just said to myself, okay, just play a solid nine holes of golf here, hit fairways; hit greens,” McIlroy said.
“Try to be a little more conservative in some ways and birdie the holes that you should do.
“Made a really good save on 17, which was big. But apart from that, yeah, it was just a more even-keeled round of golf.”
As for Lowry, the Offaly man was left to wonder what might have been after he rolled in eight birdies against three bogeys in a 66 that left him tied for 23rd on five-under.
“Look, the first couple of days, I played my way out of the tournament,” said Lowry, who got to seven-under for the day playing the 18th, where he drove into the water and did well to salvage a bogey.
“But it is a strange feeling because I said to the boys this morning, ‘Right, lads, two 63s and finish fourth’.
“As a pro golfer, you still have a lot of pride in what you do, and even though I’m going out there this morning, I’m pretty much out of it unless I shoot eight or nine under today. And I had a chance to do that at certain stages of the round; I had it going.”
Like McIlroy, Lowry has been taken aback by the fan support and he’s pulling for an Irish medal on Sunday.
“I’d like to see Rory in there with a shout because it would be interesting to see what the Irish guys (fans) would be like,” he said.
“It would almost be like a mini-Ryder Cup but not — you know what I mean, with all the different countries involved. Because there’s going to be 20 people going out there with a chance to medal tomorrow.”