Rory McIlroy's driver steals the show at WGC-Dell Match Play

AUSTIN, Texas — One week ago, Rory McIlroy unboxed his new driver, took two swings and knew.

“Yeah,” he thought. “I think I’ve got one here.”

Did he. The kinship between player and implement was on full and glorious display throughout Thursday, but especially on the last hole of his late match at the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play. With a 1-up lead on the 18th tee at Austin Country Club, McIlroy delivered “the perfect swing at the perfect time,” launching a 375-yard downwind drive to 3 feet, 9 inches to close out a tight, well-played match with Denny McCarthy.

McIlroy ended the second day of group play 2-0-0. With the conceded eagle on the 18th, the third seed shot 7-under 64 on an afternoon of swirling winds and match-play pressure. The mighty lash on the last hole wasn’t even his longest. McIlroy hammered a 420-yard bomb on the par-5 12th. The new driver seems to fit.

“That’s what it should be,” he said. “When you're trying to fit clubs and stuff I don't think there should be too much fiddling about with it.”

The 2015 champion of the WGC-Dell Match Play, McIlroy has made 13 starts in the only match-play competition on the PGA TOUR, and his sixth at Austin Country Club, where he finished fourth in 2016. Before this year, he’d advanced out of group play only once, in 2019, in his last four starts.

This time feels different.

“It's windy and blustery and tricky,” he said. “It was good. I'm really proud of myself that I hung in there after being three down early and clawing it back and producing the shots that I did over the last few holes to ultimately get the job done.”

It required some patience. McIlroy waited five holes for his first birdie of the second round. He was 2 down by that time and needed the birdie on the short par-4 fifth to stay there with McCarthy, who also birdied the hole.

McCarthy would stumble. McIlroy would not. He made four birdies over the next 13 holes, including a long putt on the seventh, and never lost ground.

Then he came to the 18th.

He considered a shorter club. A fairway wood might catch the downslope of the fairway and vault it close to the green. He chose the new driver.

The soaring shot barely covered a greenside bunker, the edge of it throwing his ball toward the hole. For a moment it looked like it might go in.

“I was 1-up and there's certainly a lot of other ways to make birdie on that hole without having to do that,” McIlroy said. “It was a great swing and it was great time to do it.”