MEMPHIS, Tenn. – Back-to-back bogeys to finish his week at the FedEx St. Jude Championship seemed apropos for Rory McIlroy, who struggled to rounds of 74-70-72-72.
On the bright side, his 66th-place finish was an improvement over his last start at TPC Southwind, a tie for 68th in 2024, when he seemed to sour on the course if not the scorching August conditions.
The world No. 2 also took solace in the chance to knock off some competitive rust and prepare for the year’s final two events.
“I definitely felt like I found a feel out there that might work on the golf course. I hit some better shots coming in, for sure. Still a few loose ones as well, but five birdies coming in … there's some signs of encouragement there,” said McIlroy, who began his final round with a double bogey and played his first six holes in 5 over.
McIlroy skipped the Memphis event last year and seemed to be poised to bypass the tournament again this year but said he didn’t want to go into the final two playoff events having not played competitive golf since The Open in July.
It’s likely that he was also motivated to play this week to help smooth over his decision to likely fall one event short of the Tour-mandated minimum of 15 starts. McIlroy told reporters earlier in the week that he’d spoken with Tour CEO and commissioner Brian Rolapp about the issue and was confident they could find a solution.
McIlroy said he planned to fly home to South Florida to work on his swing with his coach, Michael Bannon, before heading to next week’s BMW Championship in St. Louis, Missouri.
“To me, it's more about obviously the execution of what I'm doing right now, and the execution wasn't there this week,” he said. “I'm going to have to sort of put the head down and grind from now until Thursday to try to feel like I have any sort of chance next week.”