ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — Rory McIlroy‘s charge at the Abu Dhabi Championship faltered when he found water off his drive and made double bogey on the last hole Saturday, leaving him five shots off the lead held by Paul Waring heading into the final round.
Nine strokes off the lead after 36 holes, the No. 3-ranked McIlroy had closed to three shots back in the third round when he pulled his tee shot on the par-5 No. 18, the ball bouncing off the rocks lining the fairway and ricocheting into the water.
After a drop, McIlroy hit an approach — his fourth shot — into the greenside bunker and made a 7, finishing with a 3-under 69 and at 13 under overall.
“The leaders weren’t getting away, and I was making a little bit of a charge,” said McIlroy, who made six birdies after opening his round with a bogey. “And one mistake — that drive on 18. Untimely mistake.”
It was all the more frustrating for McIlroy because the 229th-ranked Waring — the leader by five shots after the second round — was one of only two players in the top 29 to shoot over par Saturday.
With a 1-over 73, Waring saw his lead trimmed to one stroke as he sits at 18 under for the tournament. Niklas Norgaard was alone in second place after shooting a 69, with Tommy Fleetwood (71), Thorbjorn Olesen (71), Sebastian Soderberg (68) and Shane Lowry (66) tied for third place.
“You’ve got to have an average day, haven’t you?” said Waring, whose 19-under total after two rounds was the lowest 36-hole score to par in European tour history. “A little bit disappointed. I felt like could I have really moved forward today and put myself out of sight.
“But four rounds of golf, you’re always going to have an iffy run of holes, iffy round of golf, whatever you want to call it,” the 39-year-old Englishman added. “If beginning of the week you’d given me a one-shot lead going into tomorrow, I’d snatch your hand off.”
McIlroy was in a tie for 13th place as he seeks a win that would clinch him the Race to Dubai title for a sixth time, tying him with the late Seve Ballesteros and putting him just two off the record eight of Colin Montgomerie.
“I dug myself a bit of hole to get out of,” McIlroy said, adding he still goes “into tomorrow feeling like I have half a chance.”
McIlroy also made triple bogey on No. 17 on Friday.
