Rory McIlroy’s second-round 70 at the 2024 Dubai Invitational may not look like his opening 62 on paper, but the world No. 2 was not far off from his Thursday effort. Standing at 10 under through 36 holes, McIlroy commands a two-stroke lead over Yannik Paul and Jeff Winther heading into the weekend.
The margin could have been even wider for McIlroy, who started his day with birdies on Nos. 3-4 to quickly reach 11 under for the tournament. He seemed to be on cruise control up until the par-3 8th, where disaster ultimately struck. Hitting his tee shot into the water hazard lining the front of the green, McIlroy dropped on a forward tee to then play his third. His third followed the fate of his first, and the 34-year-old was left playing his fifth with an iron still in hand. He went onto card a quadruple-bogey 7 and drop to 7 under.
“I think if I look at the other 17 holes that I played, I played very, very well again,” McIlroy said. “Hit some good iron shots. Played not too dissimilarly to the way I played yesterday. I maybe holed a couple more putts yesterday but the conditions were getting a little trickier. The wind was up, greens were firm and I had a couple of miscues on the eighth hole.”
McIlroy bounced back by taking advantage of the par-5 scoring opportunities on the back nine. Easy birdies on Nos. 10 and 13 got him back to even par on the day before a bonus birdie arrived from just inside 30 feet on the par-3 16th to extend his lead to two. A pair of pars on the difficult 17th and 18th holes cemented another round in the red for the Northern Irishman.
“The tenth was big,” McIlroy continued. “I had a chance to bounce back on nine that I missed but ten was big. The two shots into 13 were big, too. And to make two relatively easy birdies and then I give myself chances most of the back nine, which was nice, and I was able to convert a couple before that tough finishing stretch there on 17 and 18. I felt like I did well just to get my head back into it and play some solid golf on the way in and everyone seemed to find it a little more difficult today than yesterday. So it’s nice to go into the weekend still with the lead.”
McIlroy hopes to convert this 36-hole lead into his 17th career victory on the DP World Tour. He shot out of the gates in similar fashion in 2023 by winning in his first start of the year at the Dubai Desert Classic, which he is set to defend next week.