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Rory McIlroy was in danger of missing Houston cut, but rallied to continue his Masters prep

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3 days ago

March 29, 2025

Two weeks after winning the Players Championship in a playoff, Rory McIlroy was looking at a serious, if understandable letdown. The Ulsterman teed off late on Friday in the Texas Children’s Hospital Houston Open, in the opposite draw of World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, who tied his Memorial Park course record with a second-round 62 to take the lead.

Then came a two-hour weather delay, with McIlroy only having finished seven holes. And when he three-putted the par-5 seventh to only make par, the World No. 2 found himself outside the bubble to make the weekend.

McIlroy needed to rally, and he did. In fading light, he made three straight birdies from Nos. 15-17 to shoot four-under-par 66 and complete 36 holes at four under—two shots above the cut line and seven strokes behind Scheffler.

“Yeah, it’s pretty nice,” McIlroy said. “It was a little dicey there at the end. Maverick [McNealy] made a really good up-and-down for par to make the cut. I was saying to [caddie] Harry [Diamond] I was just happy I had that shot cushion coming up the last because it was getting pretty dark.”

A day after McIlroy opened with a “pedestrian” level-par 70, he only notched two birdies on Friday—at Nos. 2 and 3—through the first 14 holes. But his round was buoyed when he made a 16-foot birdie putt at the par-3 15th, followed by another birdie when he chipped to four feet at the par-5 16th. Now inside the cut bubble, McIlroy added a third birdie with a strong approach to 12 feet at the par-4 17th.

“I hit it a little better coming in; I holed a couple of putts, that was it,” McIlroy said. “Again, it’s the sort of golf course where it’s easy to just make a ton of pars, not a lot of trouble out there. But you just need some putts to go in to obviously make birdies. … It was nice to see a couple putts go in and get finished and obviously get a couple more rounds here over the weekend.”

McIlroy, 35, is finalizing his preparations for the upcoming Masters, where he’ll once again look to complete the career Grand Slam. He’s not entered in next week’s Valero Texas Open, so this will be the last competitive tune-up. McIlroy, tied for 30th, said he can’t think about the pace set this week by Scheffler, the defending Masters champ.

“I think I just have to play my own tournament and stay in my own little world, try to get the best out of myself,” McIlroy said. “Whether that’s good enough or not, that’s not really up to me at this point; that’s up to the guys that are in front of me on the leaderboard. But if I can go out there and shoot a couple of good scores over the weekend, I’ll be happy with my week’s work.”