One birdie on the front nine neutralised by a bogey on the back nine meant a 72.
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This time, it wasn’t enough.
McIlroy was 5 down with five holes to play when he ran off three straight birdies.
Cameron Smith calmly rolled in a birdie putt from just short of three metres at the last hole to secure his place in the next round of the World Golf Championship Dell Matchplay in Texas today, but his rewards are even greater than that. “So many things pop into your head in match play vs. stroke play”. Top-ten finishes at the Valspar and WGC-Mexico, a win in Singapore, and now a gritty fight to make the knockout stages in Austin all bode well for Augusta. You have to really take it one hole at a time, and I’ve tried to do a lot better job this year of playing my game as opposed to playing to my opponent. This could have been a real hammering today but Oosthuizen played some excellent golf himself to stay alive and take the match to Austin Country Club’s 17th green. With the match all square, Noren made a 10-foot birdie at the 17th to go 1 up, and then holed a 15-foot par putt on the final hole to avoid going to a playoff with Finau. “I’m the underdog playing the defending championship”. The Spaniard is finally beaten in the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, but he didn’t go easy.
Meanwhile, Jordan Spieth finally caught Patrick Reed, only to lose two of the next three holes.
The world No 7 lost 5 and 3 and confessed that ending his 18-month winless streak at the Arnold Palmer Invitational last Sunday left him mentally spent.
Spieth was a 4 & 2 victor over China’s Li Haotong while Reed defeated South Africa’s Charl Schwartzel 1 up.
It bent the grip of his putter enough that he could no longer use the damaged club in the round. They go head-to-head on Friday to decide who wins the group.
Pat Perez rallied from 3 down with seven holes to play to halve his match with Si Woo Kim.
Kisner is looking for the biggest title of his career, having won PGA titles at Colonial past year and Sea Island in 2015, while Poulter must now win next week’s Houston Open to qualify for the Masters.
Meanwhile, Luke List has made it to the 18th hole against Justin Thomas, even though List has had to putt with his sand wedge.
If Thomas makes the final, he will bump American Dustin Johnson out of world No 1. Reed had a 2 up lead with five to play.
But it’s not just the format that makes for odd days, it’s the Tour’s answer to match play that makes things really weird. But he couldn’t keep up with Thomas – really, who could? – after Thomas was a sizzling 6 under par through 12 holes.
Six of the matches were halved, and three of them felt like victories.
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But while the 42-year-old was understandably frustrated at being told of the errant information just 10 minutes before his match with Kisner, he refused to blame that for his sudden loss of form after three-and-a-half days of excellent match play.
