'Of course it concerns me': McIlroy's nightmare round the worst possible prep for US Open
RORY MCILROY PLANS to spend the weekend testing new drivers after missing the cut at the Canadian Open with a disastrous second round of eight-over par 78.
The world number two had a new driver in the bag this week in Toronto in a bid to get more control, but hit just four out of 14 fairways in his nightmare second round.
One such miss came at the par-four fifth where he was right off the tee before firing his approach shot long and out of bounds, taking a quadruple-bogey eight that effectively condemned him to a first missed cut of the season.
'Yeah, of course it concerns me,' McIlroy told media afterwards when asked about the short turnaround to the third Major of the season, the US Open at Oakmont next week.
'You don't want to shoot high scores like the one I did today. Still I felt like I came here obviously with a new driver thinking that that sort of was going to be good and solve some of the problems off the tee, but it didn't.
Obviously going to Oakmont next week, what you need to do more than anything else there is hit fairways. [I'm] still sort of searching for the sort of missing piece off the tee.
'Obviously for me, when I get that part of the game clicking, then everything falls into place for me. Right now that isn't. Yeah, that's a concern going into next week.'
McIlroy finished his round with four bogeys and a double as well as the quad at the fifth, and spent the latter part of Friday's round
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'I didn't hit enough fairways. I felt like I drove the ball better yesterday than I did today.
'I think once I made that big number on the front nine, I was always behind the eight ball a little bit. After nine holes, I sort of resigned myself to the fact that I'd be flying home to Florida tonight.
'Yeah, it was just about trying to think about — trying to make a few good swings, seeing where the misses were. You're trying to sort of learn as much as I could just looking ahead to next week.
He explained: 'I think there's still learnings that you have to take from a day like today. Look, even though the last two days didn't go the way I wanted them to, there's still things that I can take from it, and there's still things that I can learn.
I'm going to have to do a lot of practice and a lot of work over the weekend at home and try to at least have a better idea of where my game is going into next week.'
Part of that work will involve figuring which driver to put in the bag as he bids to go one better after agonising near misses and runner-up finishes at each of the last two US Opens.
'I was saying to Harry [Diamond, his caddy] going down the last this is the second time this year I've tried the new version, and it hasn't quite worked out for me.
'So I'd say I'll be testing quite a few drivers over the weekend.'
Irish eyes this week are firmly on Shane Lowry who backed up his brilliant opening round with a second-round 68 on Friday, moving to eight-under par and four shots off the lead held by America's Cameron Champ.
Lowry will tee off at 6.10pm on Saturday evening alongside first-round co-leader Cristobal Del Solar of Chile, with Champ and Andrew Putnam — who is two shots back — out in the final group at 6.50pm.
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