{"id":135724,"date":"2025-09-05T23:05:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T23:05:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/135724\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T23:05:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T23:05:06","slug":"mcilroy-shoots-66-powers-into-contention-at-irish-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/135724\/","title":{"rendered":"McIlroy shoots 66, powers into contention at Irish Open"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>STRAFFAN, Ireland &#8212; <a data-player-guid=\"65575c5e-0ef2-9f58-6495-42da8638a332\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/golf\/player\/_\/id\/3470\/rory-mcilroy\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rory McIlroy<\/a> hit a bogey-free 6-under 66 to move into contention after the second round of the Irish Open, where <a data-player-guid=\"5108f727-3b37-d951-4e68-221410935f51\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/golf\/player\/_\/id\/5727\/joakim-lagergren\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Joakim Lagergren<\/a> of Sweden leads after a 62 on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>McIlroy jumped into a share of third place after making six birdies at The K Club, two of them coming at the last two holes to thrill the deep galleries following their Northern Irishman on his homecoming.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Amazing &#8212; the whole day,&#8221; McIlroy said. &#8220;Even just walking to the range for the warmup today, the support is absolutely incredible. I&#8217;m looking forward to playing in that atmosphere for the next couple of days as well.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The world No. 2 will have to reel in Lagergren, who led on 12-under par after 36 holes, and <a data-player-guid=\"f05dcefa-d131-4d1e-c285-6c59305709f0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/golf\/player\/_\/id\/6962\/adrien-saddier\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Adrien Saddier<\/a> of France, who added a 66 to an opening 67 and was one stroke back.<\/p>\n<p>Lagergren, 33, has history at The K Club. Last year, when playing the Irish Challenge here on the adjoining Palmer South Course, he shot a course-record 63 and then holed out from a bunker to make eagle on the 72nd hole and earn a one-stroke victory.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Ireland is treating me well,&#8221; Lagergren said.<\/p>\n<p>McIlroy was tied on 7 under with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/golf\/player\/_\/id\/5140\/thorbj%C3%B8rn-olesen\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Thorbjorn Olesen<\/a> (71), <a data-player-guid=\"689f5372-e953-1ba1-d546-a8cdc40be9cd\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/golf\/player\/_\/id\/442589\/daniel-hillier\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Daniel Hillier<\/a> (66) and <a data-player-guid=\"a275ace0-3b2d-3669-a319-534c0de9b539\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/golf\/player\/_\/id\/469935\/alfredo-garcia\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Alfredo Garcia<\/a>-Heredia (65).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STRAFFAN, Ireland &#8212; Rory McIlroy hit a bogey-free 6-under 66 to move into contention after the second round&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135725,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":["post-135724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}