Two shots down after a penalty in round one, Rory McIlroy answered with a nine-under 63 to surge back into Abu Dhabi Championship contention.
Rory McIlroy refused to let a penalty define his week. On Friday at the Abu Dhabi Championship, the Northern Irishman produced a nine-under-par 63 in round two, rolling in 11 birdies to haul himself back into the mix.
The charge was a direct response to a frustrating opening round, where McIlroy was hit with a two-shot penalty that left him with work to do. Instead of letting the setback linger, he attacked the course from the start of his second round and kept the pressure on with a steady stream of birdies.
Eleven birdies in a single round is the kind of scoring that shifts a leaderboard in a hurry. It also shows a player who can turn frustration into fuel, a quality that has long set McIlroy apart among the game's elite.
With the penalty now behind him and momentum firmly on his side, McIlroy heads into the weekend as a serious threat. If he keeps finding the hole like this, the rest of the field will be looking over their shoulders.
