With 272 yards to the front of the par-5 18th green on the Jumeirah Estate’s Earth course and another 19 yards to the pin, McIlroy “nutted” a “perfect” 3-wood through the slightly left-to-right headwind.
In between clubs at the par-5 third, JT hit one of the worst fairway woods he’s probably hit in a long time – a swipey banana slice that peeled off into the pine straw on the right-hand side. And that’s when he pulled some short-game magic: