Rory McIlroy turned his 2026 PGA Championship week on its head at Aronimink on Friday, following an opening-round 74 with a five-under 67 in Round 2 that moved him to within five shots of the lead heading into the weekend.
The Northern Irishman, who had blamed his Thursday struggles on a season-long driver problem, reset his approach on a cold and breezy Philadelphia morning and admitted afterwards that his Round 1 mindset had been wrong for the test he was facing.
"I do feel like I'm right in the tournament and that's really what I wanted to do today was to just get myself back in it, and I feel like I've done that," McIlroy said.
The four-time major champion explained that watching early coverage helped him recalibrate before his afternoon tee time.
"This afternoon I had a better understanding of how the course was playing and just watching a little bit of the coverage early on today," he said. "I probably went out there yesterday being a little too aggressive thinking that guys were going to go lower than they were."
McIlroy added that the leaderboard told him patience would be rewarded rather than punished. "Knowing that the field isn't going to get away from you, you can be a little bit more patient, especially this afternoon," he said.
"It's been hard to make birdies out there because obviously one, the wind the last couple days, but also where they've put these hole locations," he said. "I feel like they've really tried to protect the course the first couple of days. So, depending on a little bit calmer conditions and maybe a couple more favourable hole locations, I think guys that are just here for the weekend feel, I think everyone's got to feel like they've got a chance."
The most pointed comments came when McIlroy was asked whether he agreed with Scottie Scheffler's earlier description of the pin positions as the hardest he had seen on tour. McIlroy stopped short of echoing Scheffler's verdict, but expressed his own reservations about the setup philosophy.
"I think a bunched leaderboard like this, I think it's a sign of not a great setup," McIlroy said. "It hasn't really enabled anyone to separate themselves. It's easy to make a ton of pars, hard to make birdies, and not that it's hard to make bogeys, but it feels like bogey is the worst score you're going to shoot on any one hole. There's not a lot of hazards."
He was careful to distinguish between the course and the way it had been presented for the major. "I think the setup is fine. I like the golf course. It's good. The pins were tough, and the wind was what it was as well. But I just think really good setups, this starts to spread the field a bit and not great setups sort of bring everyone together, and I feel like that's what's happened the last two days."
A seven-and-a-half-hour round on Friday tested McIlroy's patience in a different way, with bottlenecks around the eighth and tenth greens and a lost-ball search slowing his group. "It was slow," he said. "There are a few little parts of the course that you can sort of get jammed on, but it's fine. It seems like the first two days in major championship golf are always going to be like that. Hopefully over the weekend it'll speed up."
McIlroy's bogey-free 67 was one of only a handful of clean cards on a day when the cut hovered around five-over, leaving him perfectly positioned for a charge if the wind drops and the pins ease on Saturday.