Rory McIlroy described feeling “lost” on the course after a disappointing 2-over 72 at the FedEx St. Jude Championship resulted in a 66th-place finish, leaving him near the bottom of the 68-player field.
The Northern Irishman, ranked No. 2 in the world, attributed his struggles to an off-kilter swing and a lack of preparation, having not competed since last month's Open Championship. He failed to break par in any of his four rounds at TPC Southwind.
"The swing wasn't in sync and obviously I didn't do a ton of practice coming in here," McIlroy stated. "I'm so far away from where I need to be to even feel like I have a chance. I've just got to keep working and hope it turns around a little bit."
McIlroy will proceed to the BMW Championship, the second event of the FedEx Cup playoffs, held this week at Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis. Despite his current form, he is guaranteed a spot in the 30-man season-ending Tour Championship in Atlanta later this month. There, he aims to secure his fourth FedEx Cup title, his first since 2022.
"I guess nice to shake the rust off a little bit, but I'm going to have to work pretty hard between now and next Thursday to feel like I have any sort of golf game to compete next week," McIlroy said. "To me it's more about obviously the execution of what I'm doing right now, and the execution wasn't there this week. I'm going to have to sort of put the head down and grind from now until Thursday to try to feel like I have any sort of chance [at Bellerive]."
In the same tournament, World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler secured an eight-shot victory in his first event since January.