Rory McIlroy misses the cut at The Players, says he’s sacrificed his game for PGA Tour vs. LIV Golf

A botched haircut, a haircut, and a haircut to his grueling job in the minefield of golf politics, too. After a hectic week at the Players Championship, a realignment of priorities is on Rory McIlroy’s agenda as he looks to right his game ahead of the Masters.

With unsettling timing, it would seem the Northern Irishman’s exceptional form until 2022 and early skirmishes this year suddenly gave way to something less desirable here at Sawgrass.

He completed his second round of 73 on Saturday after storms on Friday, with the result that he was unable to make a cut for the third time since July 2021. The proximity to the first major of the season, which begins in Augusta in just over three weeks, it means your problems adjusting to a new driver have taken on a degree of urgency.

He was loose off the tee through both of his loops, either side of a mid-tournament haircut that fixed his looks but not his game, which was also further undermined by a cold putter. Given his successes last year, illuminated by four wins in nine months and a second-place finish as recently as last week, there’s no sense of panic.

However, there will be few who disagree with McIlroy’s own assessment that he has suffered somewhat from his responsibilities at the forefront of disputes with LIV and particularly in his orchestrations around the recent PGA Tour shakeup. Although those contributions have matched some of his best golf games in years, and indeed he has apparently thrived on occasion, it was likely that the workload would inevitably catch up with him.

“I would love to be a golfer again,” McIlroy said. ‘Look, it’s been a busy couple of weeks, and honestly, it’s been a busy six or eight months. But as I said at the beginning of the week, everything has been announced now and the wheels have turned, so obviously it should calm down from here.

McIlroy has been one of the PGA Tour’s staunchest defenders amid golf’s civil war with LIV Golf and came out again this week supporting recent changes to ‘elevated’ events.

But he admitted that he has sacrificed time working on his game to focus on ‘other things’, and now it is costing him money on the pitch.

“It’s just time management,” McIlroy said. ‘golf here [at tournaments], okay, but it’s more of the time at home to make sure you’re preparing, to make sure you’re doing everything you can to be ready once you get to these weeks. That’s where maybe I’ve sacrificed a little bit of time with some of this other stuff.

“Like I said, I’m ready to go back to being a pure golfer.”

To that end, there are areas that need to be addressed. Top of McIlroy’s to-do list is correcting his tendency to miss to the right with a driver he traded to three weeks ago after his trusted predecessor was in danger of missing due to stickiness on the clubface. caused by age. His driving stats here ranked him 117th in accuracy, which is a raw Sawgrass killer but would be a bit less important at the Masters.

He stated that he was “ready to go back to being purely a golfer” amid the LIV vs. PGA Tour

Big mistakes proved costly for McIlroy, as both his driver and putter let him down.

Arguably most worrisome in the context of Augusta, and its fast greens, will be McIlroy’s putting, with 60 putts in his two rounds at Players, costing the World No. 3 three strokes up the course.

“Just very boring,” McIlroy said, summing up his week. ‘Yeah, I guess the course, you just have to be really ready to play well here. If you’re a bit off, it definitely magnifies where you are. It’s a bit of a puzzle.

‘Some years I come here, and I like that it feels easier than others. It’s just a tricky golf course, and you don’t hit fairways and you have a lot of work ahead of you.

“Actually, I don’t feel like I’m playing that bad at all. A few mistakes here and there, postponed the 6th hole yesterday, and just things that were a little messy here and there. But I hit the ball well.

With less than a month to go before the Masters, his coveted major needed to complete his career Grand Slam, McIlroy appears poised to focus more on the action on the pitch than the drama off it.

He said he will head to Augusta National on Monday and Tuesday for practice rounds before the first Major of the year from April 6-9 in search of his first green jacket before playing just one more PGA Tour event before the Masters, in the WGC. -Dell Technologies Match Play in Austin, Texas, March 22-25.

“I’m just making sure my game is on point for Augusta,” McIlroy said. ‘Making sure I have all the vaccinations. Making sure to familiarize myself with the golf course again and go up there for a couple of days. But yeah, from now until early April, it’s really just about getting ready for Augusta.

Last year, the four-time Grand Slam champion finished second at the Masters after shooting an 8-under 64 in the final round.

McIlroy started the event alongside his two World No. 1 rivals, Jon Rahm and Scottie Scheffler, and the trio had already held the top spot in 2023.

The trio were due to play together on Saturday, but Spain’s Rahm, who tops the FedExCup standings, withdrew before his second round due to illness, leaving the door open for Scheffler to overtake him as world No. 1 once again.

World No. 1 Jon Rahm withdrew from the Players Championship on Friday due to illness.

Scottie Scheffler (right), who was playing alongside McIlroy, could retake the world number 1 ranking

While his fellow players’ weeks at Sawgrass got shorter, Scheffler fared significantly better.

The reigning Masters champion will start the third round in the final matchup, two shots behind leader Adam Svensson.

Canadian Svensson leads the Tour’s flagship event at nine under after a birdie on the 18th saw him sign for a second-round 67.

Meanwhile, American Ben Griffin followed up his opening 67 with a second-round 71 to fall back into a four-way tie for third with Min Woo Lee, Christiaan Bezuidenhout and Collin Morikawa.