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<\/p>\n
\u201cAs I started hitting balls on the range before the round, it worsened and developed into muscle spasms in my lower back,\u201d the Northern Ireland star said.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, I\u2019m not able to continue and have to withdraw.\u201d<\/p>\n
McIlroy exited the tournament after reaching the halfway stage at four under, nine shots behind 36-hole leader Daniel Berger. <\/p>\n
McIlroy\u2019s withdrawal comes at a critical period of the season, with the five-time major-winner due to defend his Players Championship title at TPC Sawgrass and his Masters title at Augusta next month.<\/p>\n
Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland. Photo: Orlando Ramirez\/Getty Images\/AFPSource: AFP<\/p>\n
Elsewhere, Australia\u2019s Min Woo Lee kept within touching distance of leader Daniel Berger with a four-under 68 in the third round, recovering after a bogey on Hole 1.<\/p>\n
Berger\u2019s lead dwindled to two strokes on a tough, rain-interrupted third day at the Arnold Palmer Invitational Saturday, as world number one Scottie Scheffler struggled.<\/p>\n
Play was held up for an hour as a quarter-inch of rain hit Florida\u2019s Bay Hill in a 15-minute mid-afternoon period, leaving greens briefly unplayable as grounds crew scrambled to remove the water. <\/p>\n
Berger – a four-time PGA Tour winner, chasing his first title in five years – led by six strokes before the break. When play resumed, the American runaway leader survived a scare on 13 as his ball somehow held up in thick grass on the water\u2019s cusp. <\/p>\n
But he still had to settle for a bogey after two-putting, and completed just 15 holes before darkness fell, allowing the chasing pack to gain ground. <\/p>\n
His playing partner Akshay Bhatia sank a twilight birdie on the 16th, while Berger opted not to attempt his eagle putt on the same green until Sunday. <\/p>\n
\u201cSixteen was kind of a must… It\u2019s fun to be in the hunt,\u201d said Bhatia.<\/p>\n
Two shots further back was Sepp Straka who carded66, the day\u2019s best score. The Austrian shared third place with Collin Morikawa and Cameron Young, who made a fine 67 featuring four straight birdies at the turn. <\/p>\n
Morikawa said barely managing to finish his third round could be an advantage, with the leaders forced to tee off early again on Sunday to complete theirs. <\/p>\n
\u201cJust being able to wake up and sleep in, and just kind of get the day situated, it\u2019s a huge kind of momentum thing I think for the routine,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Elsewhere, Scheffler endured another rollercoaster round, a day after tossing his ball into the 18th hole\u2019s lake in frustration.<\/p>\n
Scheffler started Saturday with a string of bogeys, made four straight birdies on the back nine, then ended with a double bogey. <\/p>\n
He found the water with an aggressive line from very deep rough on the final hole, then wedged the ball into a bunker.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you hit it in the rough out here you don\u2019t know what you\u2019re going to get,\u201d said Scheffler.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes you can get the ball on the green. And then you look at the lie I had on one, I can\u2019t hit it more than 90 yards,and I\u2019m not necessarily weak in terms of speed.\u201d<\/p>\n
The end result was an eventful 72 that left Scheffler where he began, on three under. <\/p>\n
\u201cPretty up and down, I would say,\u201d Scheffler summarised, joking that \u201cgolf\u2019s a game that kind of beats you up\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy withdrew before the third round of the PGA Tour\u2019s Arnold Palmer Invitational in Florida on Saturday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":526100,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":["post-526099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=526099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/526100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=526099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=526099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=526099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}