Rory McIlroy ran up a horrid US Open opening round of six-over-par 78 yesterday, to leave him all of 13 strokes behind first round leader Rickie Fowler.
He faces a tough ask if he is to survive the cut, which features the top 60 and ties, McIlroy – who was 143rd of the 156 players after the first round – claimed: "I feel like I'm capable. As I said, I just need to get the ball on the fairway."
In his column this morning, Jackie Tyrrell is analysing Waterford, and he thinks Derek McGrath has put all the eggs in the championship basket; now it's time to deliver.
“My impression of Waterford all along is that they’re a nice team. You’d love your sister to be going out with one of them. Bigger teams can get away with looking down on them.”
Gerry Thornley believes that Warren Gatland's choice of captain for Saturday's Lions match against the Maori All Blacks is a fitting honour for Munster stalwart Peter O'Mahony, after a difficult 12 months.
“I just wanted to get back training for the lads and get stuck in. And that’s what I did. It’s been a bit of a mad season,” explained the Irish flanker.
Meanwhile Gatland has revealed he is set to radically overhaul the Lions team to play the Chiefs in Hamilton next Tuesday, by calling up half a dozen players or more from the Welsh and Scottish squads which are touring in the vicinity.
While ahead of Ireland’s Test against Japan on Saturday morning, Joe Schmidt is ‘excited’ to see how his inexperienced squad handle their fatigue, with an eye on the 2019 World Cup.
“Some guys are flat because they are waking up at 1am or 2am and they can’t get back to sleep.”
