Rory McIlroy believes he is in a strong position to end his great drought afterwards maintaining his promising start to the Open at St Andrews.
The Northern Irishman continued his first lap 66 with 68 on Friday to sit 10-under halfway through the stage. three behind leader Cameron Smith.
The world’s No. 2, McIlroy, 33, hasn’t won any of the top golf awards in eight years, but despite feeling he could have shot even better, he feels he’s well balanced now.
“Overall I felt like it was a good day,” said the 2014 Open champion. “I’m in a good position to go into the weekend and that’s all I can ask of myself.
“There were some short putts there that I could have kept and could have been a little closer to the lead. It would have been nice to make a three out of 18. But it’s two very, very solid rounds to go with open and really happy about that.”
Third round start times (all times BST)
(x) amateur notes
8.35 – Richard Mansell
8.45 – Trey Mullinax, Kevin Kisner
8.55 – Tony Finau, Adri Arnaus
9.05 – Justin DeLos Santos, Robert MacIntyre
9.15 – Francesco Molinari, Dean Burmester
9.25 – Lars van Meijel, Robert Dinwiddie
9.40 – Sebastian Munoz, Jordan Smith
9.50 – Sungjae Im, Aaron Jarvis (x)
10.00 –Wyndham Clark, Sam Bairstow (x)
10.10 – Christiaan Bezuidenhout, John Parry
10.20 – Anthony Quayle, Chris Kirko
10.30 – Hideki Matsuyama, Bryson DeChambeau
10.45 – Jamie Rutherford, Jason Scrivener
10.55am – Joaquin Niemann, Paul Casey
11.05 – Marcus Armitage, Adrian Meronko
11.15 am – Justin Thomas, Jason Kokrak
11.25 – Danny Willett, Corey Conners
11.35 – Billy Horschel, Cameron Tringale
11.50 – Laurie Canter, Thomas Pieters
12.00 -Russell Henley, Dylan Frittelli
12.10 – Brian Harman, Tommy Fleetwood
12.20 – Kurt Kitayama, Garrick Higgo
12.30 pm -Ian Poulter, Sam Burns
12.40 – David Law, Filippo Celli (x)
12.55 – Sergio Garcia, Will Zalatoris
13.05 – Shane Lowry, Nicolai Hojgaard
13.15 – Victor Perez, Brad Kennedy
13.25 – JH Kim, Patrick Reed
13.35 – Harold Varner III, Jon Rahm
13.45 – Jordan Spieth, Triston Lawrence
14.00 – Thomas Detry and Xander Schauffele
14.10 – Lee Westwood, David Carey
14.20 – Yuto Katsuragawa, Abraham Ancer
14.30 – Aaron Wise, Lucas Herbert
14.40 – Barclay Brown (x), Sadom Kaewkanjana
14.50 – Min Woo Lee, Matt Fitzpatrick
15.05 – Si Woo Kim, Sahith Theegala
15.15 -Patrick Cantlay, Adam Scott
15.25 – Talor Gooch, Tyrrell Hatton
15.35 – Scottie Scheffler, Dustin Johnson
15.45 – Rory McIlroy, Viktor Hovland
15.55 – Cameron Young, Cameron Smith