Saturday 10 March 2018 00:15, UK
Rory McIlroy admitted his iron game was again out of sync as his Masters preparations took a hit with a missed cut at the Valspar Championship.
But McIlroy insisted he had no concerns over his ability to turn his form around, and that the good work he was putting in on the practice range would soon start to show on the course.
The 28-year-old made only one birdie in his opening 74 at Innisbrook, and that came thanks to a hole-out from a greenside bunker, but he made a bright start to his second round with a neat pitch-and-putt for birdie.
However, McIlroy then three-putted the second green from 50 feet, and he bogeyed the seventh and ninth as he missed three greens in a row and slipped back to five over.
McIlroy also bogeyed the 10th after another three-putt, although he gave himself a fighting chance to make the weekend with birdies at 11 and 14 only to drop his fourth shot of the round at the 15th.
The world No 12 parred in to card a 73, two strokes too many to avoid an early exit, but he remains confident of bouncing back when he tees up in a star-studded field at next week's Arnold Palmer Invitational.
"My Iron play, timing, it's just missing," he said afterwards. "I birdied 14 to get back to four over and needed to birdie one of the last four to make the cut, and then I hit an eight-iron that was 25 yards right of the target.
"I just really need to work on a few things just sort of syncing everything up again, that's the real big thing. It's hard because when I play on my weeks off, or practice, it feels pretty good. When I get out on to the course it isn't quite the same. I'm just trying to match everything up.
"It was a tough two days. Tough conditions yesterday, but it didn't play that difficult this afternoon. I actually hit some better shots coming in which was encouraging, if nothing else, trying to cling on to something here. But I've got a few days to work on my game before going up to Bay Hill and playing there."
But asked if he was concerned about his form after his second missed cut of the season, McIlroy said: "No. I mean, it's early in the season, it's a long year and I've shown signs of good play this year already.
"I just need to see a couple of good scores and I think that will maybe give me a little boost going forward. So it's nice that I'm playing again next week and have a chance to try and do that."
