Rory McIlroy got it going in the right direction on moving day of the Olympic Men’s Golf competition at Le Golf National, and the world number three’s five-under round has him within sight of the medal positions ahead of Sunday’s final round.
After two days where he failed to get the most out of his rounds, the Holywood man managed to negotiate the Albatross Course without a blemish on Saturday, with three birdies on the front nine followed by two more on the back and he goes into the final round four shots off the Gold Medal position and just three off Bronze.
Eagles were the highlights of rounds one and two, and though he’d fail to register a big bird in round three, it was a much more in control McIlroy as he found 17 of 18 greens, the lone miss coming on the par-4 17th where he found the right rough off the tee and more thick grass after his approach, but his putter bailed him out as he sank a 21-footer to keep the card clean.
“Yeah, a little better today,” he said afterwards, “limited the mistakes which is something I talked about last night, not doing over the first two days, and to play a bogey-free round and get myself up there in contention for a medal tomorrow is really exciting.
It was the third round in succession that he’d covered the opening nine holes impressively, but his troubles had all come on the back side so righting that wrong was something that was very much in his mind when he turned on -3.
“I just said to myself walking to the 10th tee, ‘let’s just play a good nine holes of golf, a solid nine holes of golf. Just hit fairway, hit greens and give yourself chances’. And I did that, I made that big putt for par on 17 which I thought was a good point in the round and it keeps me one shot closer to the leaders. I don’t know what the lead is going to be at the end of the day, but I’ll be three or four behind and I’m in a good spot.”
Despite shooting his best round of the week, he thinks that he’ll probably need to shoot a couple of strokes lower if he’s to have any chance of capturing the Gold Medal, particularly as Jon Rahm has come through the pack to put his name at the top of the board alongside the two-time major winner and defending Olympic champion Xander Schauffele.
“Yeah, probably a little bit lower,” he said. “The guys don’t seem to be letting up out there, but if I can go out there and play the front nine like I’ve been playing the front nine the first three days, we’ll see where that puts me with nine holes to go.”