Rory McIlroy Chases Pebble Beach Glory After Costly Double Bogeys

Rory McIlroy’s 2026 PGA Tour season has begun with equal parts promise and frustration at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. After opening with a four-under 68 that featured an eagle on the par-5 second, the world No. 2 slipped down the third-round leaderboard on Friday when two double-bogeys in a three-hole stretch blunted his charge, leaving him six shots adrift of runaway leader Akshay Bhatia. McIlroy admitted the errors were “wasteful,” pointing to three-putts and an untimely tee shot into Carmel Bay as the primary culprits. “The scoring conditions are there,” he said, “but I’m gifting strokes to the field.” His assessment echoes last year’s early-season narrative, when unforced mistakes cost him prime positions before he steadied himself to win twice in the summer stretch. Despite the hiccups, the Northern Irishman still sits inside the top 20 at 11-under-par and ranks third in strokes-gained off the tee this week—a positive sign for a player who tested cavity-back irons during the off-season but has already returned to his traditional blade set-up after the experiment “fell short of expectations.” McIlroy’s Pebble Beach track record suggests a weekend charge is possible. He closed with a flawless 64 here 12 months ago, and with greens still receptive after heavy coastal rains, birdie chances remain plentiful. “If I can tidy up the wedges and putter, there’s a low one out there,” he noted after ranking outside the top 50 in proximity from 50-125 yards over the first two rounds. A victory this weekend would deliver McIlroy his 26th PGA Tour title and vault him past Scottie Scheffler in the early FedExCup standings, while also serving notice ahead of next month’s Players Championship—a tournament he fiercely defends as “the game’s strongest field” even without major-championship status. For now, the four-time major winner remains focused on Pebble’s tiny greens, the swirling Pacific winds and an opportunity to turn Friday’s mistakes into a signature Saturday surge.