Rory McIlroy Bounces Back With Solid Second Round at Open Championship
Newsweek · C · trust 41/100
0 Share Newsweek is a Trust Project member See more of our trusted coverage when you search. Prefer Newsweek on Google to see more of our trusted coverage when you search. Rory McIlroy 's 2026 campaign at The Open Championship got off to a rocky start as he carded a 2-over 72 at Royal Birkdale.
McIlroy entered his second round in danger of missing the cut, but the 37-year-old Northern Irishman ultimately bounced back with a 3-under 67 on Friday.
McIlroy is now 1-under for the tournament, well inside the projected cut line of 1-over. He enters the weekend seven shots behind tournament leader Lucas Herbert, who fired off a historic 8-under 62 on Friday.
“Look, I think the main objective today was to be here for the weekend, which I am," McIlroy said after his second round. "I felt like I left a couple out there. Then you look at the board and you see a couple of 62s, and you feel like you could have done a bit better."
While he's a ways down the leaderboard, McIlroy feels he can make a push to contend for his seventh career major if he gets off to a good start on Saturday.
"Get off to a decent start tomorrow," McIlroy added. "There's a couple of guys up there, this will be sort of their first experience of playing in the lead at a major championship on the weekend, so there's obviously some that are very experienced at it like Cam [Young] and like Sam [Burns] as well. “Yeah, I think if I can get off to a decent start tomorrow, be 4- or 5-under for the tournament, I'll be right in it.”
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