PGA Championship: Rory McIlroy goes from almost missing the cut to posting a good finish

FARMINGDALE, N.Y. – Once in danger of missing the 36-hole cut on Friday, Rory McIlroy played well enough to get himself into the weekend at the PGA Championship, then finished his tournament Sunday with a second straight 69 at Bethpage Black.

McIlroy, a two-time PGA champion who tied for 12th with a score of 1-over 281, only the second time he missed the top 10 in 11 events this year, was 7-over par after 27 holes on Friday. But he finished with four birdies on his last six holes to make the cut on the number at 143. He played his last 45 holes in 6-under.

“Yeah, I stuck at it the whole way,” McIlroy said. “It’s a 72-hole golf tournament and you've got to try till the very end and I did that this week. It wasn't good enough to be up there in contention but I made improvements each and every day, which is a good thing.”

McIlroy took 26 putts on Sunday and made more than 121 feet of putts, but he did get unlucky a few times with putts burning the edge.

“I try not to use the word ‘should,’” he said. “I think it's a bad word, especially in golf. It swings in roundabouts. I missed a few, but … it all evens out at the end of the week.”

After taking next week off, McIlroy said he’ll play three tournaments in a row – the Memorial, the Canadian Open, and the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach.

“Actually my record in the U.S. Open hasn’t been very good the last few years,” said McIlroy, the 2011 Open champion at Congressional. “So I wanted to mix it up a little bit.”