After a nightmare end to his opening round at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am that saw three consecutive bogeys go along with a two-shot penalty for an earlier illegal drop, Rory McIlroy failed to muster a positive response in round two after carding a disappointing 74.
McIlroy, on one-over par, is currently 12 shots adrift of the co-leaders Scottie Scheffler, Ludvig Aaberg and Thomas Detry. A 43-foot birdie putt on 16 that dropped was one of three birdies for the Hollywood player on a day where he started with a bogey at the first and then had a double-bogey on the fourth. More dropped shots came on eight and 12.
There was better news for Seamus Power, however, with the Waterford player carding a 69 to stand on three under. Starting on the tenth, Power had four birdies in his round, with a dropped shot coming on the 15th.
Scheffler hit eight birdies without a blemish on his card to sit at 11-under-par while battling a course wet from overnight rain.
The world number one said aside from the weather, it was "just another day".
"Like on a lot of these back-to-front greens, it's a big adjustment going from hitting a pitching wedge to hitting an eight iron to try to take off spin," he said. "It’s little stuff like that you have to adjust to on the course."
Detry failed to repeat his first day’s efforts of 63 at Spyglass Hill, shooting a two-under-par 70 at Pebble Beach while Aberg hit a seven-under 65 to join the leading trio.
