Raging Rory McIlroy on his way to another wire-to-wire win at Shanghai Masters
Roaring Rory McIlroy is probably on his way to another wire-to-wire win in the latest Shanghai Masters in China and has now extended his overnight lead through the halfway mark of the event. Playing amidst a strong field of Asian and international players,
McIlroy was able to card three-under, 69 on the second day to edge past the rest of the 29 contenders in the $5-million event.
The northern Irishman opened up his first round with a massive eight-under, 64 and is now standing two shots clear from the 20-year-old Korean Noh Seung-yul. His bogey-free round on Thursday on a relatively difficult course in comparison with many of the
European and American courses, gave him the necessary platform to capitalize on his early gains in the rest of the rounds.
“If I can play as solid for the next three days as I did today, I feel as if I'll be very difficult to beat,” McIlroy said yesterday.
McIlroy fell for disastrous bogey and a double-bogey at the start of the day but shot back to his original form with consecutive birdies on the back nine to make up for the loss. He carded four birdies before calling it a day to finish for an aggregate of
11-under, 133.
Young Noh stunned the crowd with his blistering round of 63 on Friday, October 28 and is now pitched as outright second, ahead of the third-placed pair Louis Oosthuizen and Anthony Kim. Padraig Harrington and American Hunter Mahan are tied for the fifth
place while Ian Poulter and Robert Karlsson are contending for the seventh position.
Shanghai Masters is one of the rare events which has been organized independently by International Sports Management (ISM) and is not sanctioned by any of the European or Asian tours. The purse of the event as well as the winner’s prize share is one of the
largest monetary awards in the sport apart from the fact that ISM has paid huge appearance fee to the top-ranked players for their participation in the event. Not being sanctioned by any of the tours, Shanghai Masters does not have any bonus points either
on the PGA or the European Tour.
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