{"id":877177,"date":"2026-08-30T15:42:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T15:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/877177\/"},"modified":"2026-08-30T15:42:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T15:42:11","slug":"rory-mcilroy-back-in-the-hunt-as-viktor-hovland-leads-way-at-tour-championship-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/877177\/","title":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy back in the hunt as Viktor Hovland leads way at Tour Championship \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/rory-mcilroy\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/rory-mcilroy\">Rory McIlroy<\/a> catapulted himself into contention at the Tour Championship with a seven-under-par 63, although Viktor Hovland remains some way out in front of the Northern Irishman at East Lake.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">McIlroy, who began the day seven shots adrift of joint halfway leaders Hovland and Ryan Gerard, dropped further back early in his third round by three-putting at the 191-yard par-3 second.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">But it was a rare mistake on the greens from the six-time Major winner, who birdied four of his next five holes and picked up another couple of shots on the 10th and 12th, either side of a bogey.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Three successive birdies from the 15th briefly left McIlroy in a share of the lead at 10 under par, but he dribbled into the rough on the final hole to dash hopes of ending his round with a flourish.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">McIlroy is five shots drift of Hovland, who shot 65, and four behind Gerard, who carded 66, although the back-to-back Masters champion was happy with how he fared after a modest first couple of days.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cI think the difference today was I just putted a bit better,\u201d said McIlroy, who was in a share of 23rd in the 29-strong field at the start of the day and now sits in a tie for seventh.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cI still felt like I played okay the last couple of days, just wasn\u2019t getting as much out of my game as I wanted to. I pieced it together today and ended up obviously with a better score.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cIt\u2019s the last round of the PGA Tour season. I\u2019ve still got a lot of golf left this year, but it will be nice to go out and give it a really good run tomorrow to finish this season over in the States.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Four birdies in his last six holes left Hovland in front as the Norwegian bids to land the $10 million (\u20ac8.6 million) winner\u2019s prize on Sunday evening.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cI mean, 65 out there, especially with that finish, super happy with that,\u201d Hovland said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cIt\u2019s been just one of those weeks where I\u2019ve been able to put it together every single day for three days.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Scottie Scheffler is one of four players who are three shots behind Hovland, with the world number one carding a bogey-free 66 on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">English pair Justin Rose and Matt Fitzpatrick both faded after one-under 69 rounds, leaving them on eight under par, seven shots behind Hovland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy catapulted himself into contention at the Tour Championship with a seven-under-par 63, although Viktor Hovland remains&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":877178,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,3747,1976,82],"class_list":["post-877177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-pga-tour","tag-rory-mcilroy","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877177","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=877177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877177\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/877178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=877177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=877177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=877177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}