Rory McIlroy’s game got better when things got tougher.
McIlroy, the defending FedEx Cup champion from Northern Ireland who has not finished in the top 10 in seven events since the restart after the Covid-19 shutdown, shot 1-under-par 70 to share the lead with Patrick Cantlay at the midway point of the BMW Championship on the difficult North Course at Olympia Fields Country Club outside Chicago.
Only the top 70 players in the point standings were eligible for the second event of the PGA Tour playoffs, and the top 30 will advance to the Tour Championship next week at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, where the 2020 FedEx Cup champion will be crowned.
“It’s really tricky,” said McIlroy, whose tie for 11th in the Travelers Champion is his best results in those seven tournaments. “My caddie, Harry (Diamond), was saying that conditions were changing every 30 minutes. There was a little moisture on the greens when we started, but the wind was blowing and they just kept drying out.
“If I can drive the ball in play, I can go from there, and I wasn’t doing that the last few weeks. … Pars are good out there and I was able to break par today. I’m a good spot going into the weekend. I would love to win this tournament and go into next week No. 1 (in the point standings).”
The fourth-ranked McIlroy had five birdies and four bogeys in his round and posted a 36-hole score of 1-under 139.
Cantlay, from Los Alamitos and UCLA, equaled that score by holing out from 48 yards for an eagle-2 on the 11th hole and overcame a double-bogey 6 at No. 16 en route to a 68 that tied the low score of the day.
“It was a tough day out there,” said Cantlay, who has won twice on the PGA Tour, including the 2019 Memorial Tournament. “The golf course is really, really good, but it’s very, very difficult.
“It’s about as stiff of a test as you would want. You have to play from the fairway, and you have to play from below the hole, frankly. The greens have so much slope on them that you really need to be putting uphill. And so if you’re in the rough, it gets exponentially harder to do that.”
Top-ranked Dustin Johnson, who won The Northern Trust last week to take the FedEx Cup points lead, birdied three of the last five holes to cap a 69 and is one-stroke back in a tie for third with first-round leader Hideki Matsuyama, who followed a 67 with a 73 that included a sole birdie at No. 8.
Billy Horschel, the 2013 FedEx Cup champion, shot 71 and is two shots behind in a tie for fifth with Adam Scott (69) of Australia, Brendon Todd (68), Louis Oosthuizen (69) of South Africa and Tony Finau (71).
Two-time Masters champion Bubba Watson shot 70 despite a closing bogey and is one more down in a tie for 10th with Kevin Kisner, who also had a 70, and Mackenzie Hughes of Canada, who finished at 73.
Eight-ranked Bryson DeChambeau of Clovis and 10th-ranked Xander Schauffele of La Jolla and San Diego State also wound up with 70s and are in a tie for 13th, while ninth-ranked Patrick Reed is tied for 23rd after a 71.
Second-ranked Jon Rahm of Spain also shot 71 and is tied for 39th, third-ranked Justin Thomas, the 2017 FedEx champion, is tied for 43rd after a 74, and fifth-ranked Collin Morikawa, the PGA champion from La Canada Flintridge and Cal, totaled 73 and is tied for 58th.
Two-time FedEx Cup champion Tiger Woods struggled to a 75 and is tied for 55th.
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