Rory McIlroy has played 35 of the 36 holes so far at the Dubai Invitational.
He shot a 1-under 70 on Friday and led Yannick Paul (Germany) by two strokes, but suffered a quadruple bogey on the par-3 8th hole in his round.
“If you look at the other 17 holes I played, I think I played very well again. Hit some good iron shots,” McIlroy said of Friday's round.
“It wasn’t too different from my own play.” [Thursday]…But things are getting a little more difficult. The wind has picked up. The green was hard and I had a few miscues on the 8th hole. I felt like I was able to change my mind midway through and play some solid golf and it went well. And everyone seemed to find today a little more difficult than yesterday. So I'm happy to go into the weekend in first place.”
McIlroy hit not one, but two tee balls into the water to the left of the green on the 214-yard eighth hole. He finally got it on the putting surface on his fifth shot, but missed 13 feet and made triple bogey.
McIlroy made a quadruple bogey and dropped from 11 under to 7 under.
However, Northern Irish quickly forgot about the disaster. McIlroy missed an 11-foot birdie on the ninth hole, then birdied the par-5 10th.
“Ten was big. We had a chance to make up for the nine we missed, but 10 was big,” McIlroy noted.
Three holes later, on the par-5 13th, McIlroy hit the green in two for another birdie. His 13th at Dubai Creek is an island green, so he needs two accurate shots to get home in two. McIlroy avoided water at No. 8 as he continued to recover from trouble.
He also had another birdie on the par-3 16th, and combined with the quad at the 8th, he had a total of five birdies on the day.
The day before, the four-time major champion shot a 9-under 62 with no bogeys.
McIlroy is 10 under for the tournament and will begin the third round Saturday at 1:39 a.m. ET. Golf Channel will begin coverage at 2:30 a.m. ET.
Jack Mirko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation's Playing Through.Be sure to check it out @_PlayingThrough Cover more golf. You can follow him on Twitter @jack_milko In the same way.
