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Rory McIlroy’s 194-yard approach sets up birdie on No. 9 at Truist Championship<\/p>\n
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Written by Sean Martin<\/p>\n
CHARLOTTE, N.C. \u2013 Having already matched one trivial milestone that will surely be omitted from his Hall of Fame plaque, Rory McIlroy<\/a> was determined to avoid another.<\/p>\n \u201cI can’t remember the last time I played a round of golf and didn’t have a birdie,\u201d McIlroy thought as he walked up his final hole in the rain-delayed opening round of the Truist Championship.<\/p>\n It\u2019s something that McIlroy has done seven times in his lengthy PGA TOUR career, most recently at the 2024 Masters. It felt likely that Thursday would be his eighth on TOUR without a birdie or better. But one incredible approach and his longest made putt of the day changed that, giving McIlroy a 1-under 70.<\/p>\n Quail Hollow\u2019s ninth hole, a brutish par-4 measuring 539 yards, is an unlikely place to find a birdie, especially after a player misses the fairway, as McIlroy did.<\/p>\n But McIlroy hoisted a 9-iron from the left rough 194 yards over the trees, his ball stopping 15 feet from the hole. He raised his arms in sardonic celebration when the putt found the bottom of the hole.<\/p>\n *:not(style){overflow:hidden;position:absolute;top:0px;right:0px;bottom:0px;left:0px;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;width:100%;height:100%;}.css-17ygvlf>img,.css-17ygvlf>video{object-fit:cover;}.css-17ygvlf::before{height:0px;content:””;display:block;padding-bottom:56.25%;}]]> Rory McIlroy’s 194-yard approach sets up birdie on No. 9 at Truist Championship<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I was \u2026 walking up to the ball, I was just hoping that the ball was far enough back that I could get it up over that tree,\u201d McIlroy said. \u201cIt was a bit of a flier lie. \u2026 I’ve always been pretty comfortable trying to launch it high and get it up there. So it probably wasn’t as difficult as what it looked on TV.\u201d<\/p>\n McIlroy set a personal best by starting Thursday\u2019s round with 17 consecutive pars; his previous record of 15 was set back in 2010. He also tied his personal best for most pars in a round. He did it on two previous occasions, making a lone birdie in one of those rounds and a lone bogey in the other.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"6H AGO 2 Min Read Latest *:not(style){overflow:hidden;position:absolute;top:0px;right:0px;bottom:0px;left:0px;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;width:100%;height:100%;}.css-17ygvlf>img,.css-17ygvlf>video{object-fit:cover;}.css-17ygvlf::before{height:0px;content:””;display:block;padding-bottom:56.25%;}]]> Rory McIlroy’s 194-yard approach sets up birdie on No. 9 at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":655337,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-655336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}