McIlroy vows to battle back injury and continue FedExCup chase in Atlanta

Rory McIlroy

Rory McIlroy has no fears he can make his back injury worse by chasing down Viktor Hovland for the FedExCup at the Tour Championship in Atlanta.

Still struggling with a back problem, the world number two made four birdies and a bogey in a three-under 67 to go into the weekend in seventh place, six shots behind Hovland and Morikawa on 10-under-par.  

“I'm limited in what I can do, but I'm here grinding away, battling away,” said McIlroy, who has next week off before he is scheduled to head home for the Horizon Irish Open and the countdown to the Ryder Cup.

“So happy to be through 36 holes.”

While he was far from 100 percent and could not generate much speed, McIlroy’s putting allowed him to remain in seventh place as Hovland and Morikawa carded six-under 64s to lead by two shots from Scottie Scheffler (65) on 16-under, by three from Keegan Bradley (67) and by four from Xander Schauffele (64) and Jon Rahm (65).

“I felt like I had a little more speed,” said McIlroy, who was ranked second for strokes gained putting but 24th of 30th for strokes gained from tee to green.  

“I was probably half a club off my numbers than maybe a full club yesterday. But still it's just hard to sort of get my right side through the ball.  

“It actually feels better with the longer clubs because I'm more upright in my posture. When I sort of get down to the shorter stuff trying to stay in my posture is a struggle.

“So I'm sort of just coming out of it and swinging my arms at it and I'm missing a lot of iron shots left. But, yeah, just trying to manage it and do the best I can.”

McIlroy admitted his back spasm has prevented him from hitting the ball left-to-right or blasting high drives.

“I'm teeing it down and just hitting a sort of flat little runner down there,” he said of his tee shots.

“So, yeah, look, a little limited to the shots that I can hit, but I'm getting by.”

While his injury is a  minor worry for organisers of the Horizon Irish Open at the K Club and the BMW PGA at Wentworth, he should be fine for the Ryder Cup in a month’s time.

“I mean, I would rather it pop up now than in three or four weeks' time,” he said.

“Yeah, again, I've managed it well and I think I did well to get through yesterday. I've got through another day. Hopefully, it feels a bit better over the weekend.

“But not great timing, but at the same time, it could be worse as well.”

He admitted he did not contemplate pulling out as he feels his back will loosen up as the weekend progresses.

“I still wanted to give it a go,” he said. “As I said, I felt like if I could get through yesterday, I was just hoping that each day it would get progressively better.”

He added: “It certainly doesn't feel any worse today, so at least I know I'm not doing any damage or I don't necessarily think that by me playing it's going to get worse.  “It's just a matter of doing the right things away from the golf course to make sure that it gradually gets a little better.”