Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry have put themselves in prime position to defend their Zurich Classic title, firing a 61 in Saturday’s four-ball session to reach 22 under par – just two shots off the lead.
The duo finished with a flourish, as McIlroy drained a 30-foot eagle putt on the 18th hole after returning from a 90-minute weather delay. It was exactly the kind of round they needed after McIlroy had set a target of 20 under following Friday’s play.
“I feel like we played pretty well today. There was a lot of holes where both of us had chances,” Lowry said. “We went out and we did what we had to do. We knew we were going to have to go out and shoot a really low score today. There’s not much wind out there, and the course is fairly gettable, and in four-balls you want to be shooting at least 10 under.”
The weather delay came at an interesting moment – just after McIlroy had hit a stellar 260-yard approach shot to the par-5 18th. But the break didn’t seem to affect his focus when it mattered.
“I think the secret is not thinking about it in those 90 minutes,” McIlroy said. “We had a bit of lunch and we were watching some highlights from last year and talking about where we’re going to go for dinner tonight. The last thing on my mind during the delay was the putt, and then once I got back out there, I sort of concentrated on it and made sure I did what I needed to do and just a bonus for it to go in.”
McIlroy, playing for the first time since winning the Masters and completing the career Grand Slam, wasn’t concerned about the lengthy putt after the delay.
“I wasn’t concerned so much because I’d say the first two-thirds of the putt was sort of downhill, so there was never really concern of getting the ball to the hole,” he explained. “It was just a matter of picking the right line and just starting it on that. It was a sort of quite a comfortable putt, a little bit of left to right early, a bit of right to left at the end, overall not a ton of swing in it. A great way to finish.”
Andrew Novak and Ben Griffin held the lead at 24 under when play was suspended. They had just made the turn when the weather delay began.
