Rory McIlroy's U.S. Open prep takes nasty turn with missed cut and driver troubles

Rory McIlroy’s buildup to next week’s U.S. Open at Oakmont took a further concerning turn on Friday in the RBC Canadian Open. In his first start since his worst finish this season—a T-47 in the PGA Championship—the reigning Masters champion suffered an extremely rare setback—he missed the cut at TPC Toronto.

Making the weekend ended up not being close, as McIlroy struggled to a six-over-par 78 in the second round that included him making a quadruple bogey on the par-4 fifth hole. He finished the 36 holes at nine over and 21 shots back of leader Cameron Chance, a ninth alternate for the week who shot 62-66. The missed cut is McIlroy’s first since last July’s Open Championship.

McIlroy spoke to the media on Friday at the Canadian Open after not talking after any round at the PGA Championship following a leak about his gamer driver failing a USGA test at Quail Hollow. McIlroy, one of the strongest players in the game off the tee, played with a backup in the PGA and arrived at TPC Toronto with a TaylorMade Qi35 driver with a shorter build. The club did not work well for him, as McIlroy lost 2.187 strokes off the tee while hitting only 42 percent of the fairways. His season stats in those categories, respectively, are plus-1.974 (second on tour) and 51.13 percent (170th).

“Of course it concerns me. You don't want to shoot high scores like the one I did today,” McIlroy said. “Still, I felt like I came here obviously with a new driver thinking that that sort of was going to be good and solve some of the problems off the tee, but it didn't.”

“Obviously going to Oakmont next week, what you need to do more than anything else there is hit fairways. Still sort of searching for the sort of missing piece off the tee. Obviously for me, when I get that part of the game clicking, then everything falls into place for me. Right now that isn't. Yeah, that's a concern going into next week.”

In the second round in Canada, McIlroy lost 10.178 shots to the field, and, according to the PGA Tour, that was the second-worst performance in that stat in his career.

McIlroy made his 8 at the fifth when he flew the green and went out of bounds and couldn’t get his next two shots on the putting surface. He eventually had to make an eight-foot putt for quad. McIlroy also doubled the par-3 11th when his tee shot found the water.

Joining McIlroy in missing the weekend was the man he edged in a playoff at the Masters. Justin Rose looked as if he would make the cut, but he suffered a two-shot penalty at his 16th hole—the par-3 seventh—when he caused his ball to move in the rough while trying to move a loose impediment. Rose didn’t replace the ball and that resulted in the two-shot penalty. He shot 71 and missed the cut by one shot.