Rory Magic at Royal Melbourne

McIlroy whiffed a shot, then proceeded to make three birdies in his final four holes—dawg!

On very, very few occasions while I’m sitting on the couch, judging the world’s best players and how they’re performing under immense pressure, I’ll think, “I could’ve hit a better shot there.” Ridiculous? Yeah, probably, but in this latest case…hear me out.

During the second round of the Australian Open at Royal Melbourne, Rory McIlroy’s ball came to rest under a tree. It left him with one option: just punch it out of there. Not only was he unsuccessful, my man missed the ball completely. And not just by an inch or two, it looks like he missed it by a foot.

I watched it and said, “I’ve probably been in that exact situation 100 times, I could’ve done better there. Rory’s never in a spot like that!”

He went on to make bogey on the par 5, but bounced back quickly with an impressive birdie at the 15th.

And the roller coaster didn’t stop there.

On the 17th, McIlroy hit an outrageous shot from right of the fairway that found the green and set up an easy birdie.

A hole later, the Northern Irishman stuffed a wedge to close out his day with three birdies in his final four holes to finish off a 3-under 68.

He might be seven back of the lead, but the 25,000 fans slated to be on site Saturday will have one goal during the third round: get a glimpse of the Career Grand Slam winner.

‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’

‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source sports.yahoo.com ’