Just over a month ago, Rory McIlroy was the clear favorite in the PGA Tour Player of the Year race, with wins at Pebble Beach, The Players Championship, and The Masters.
That race has obviously gotten a lot tighter, as world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler has recently matched McIlroy's trio of victories, taking titles at the CJ Cup Byron Nelson, the PGA Championship, and the Memorial Tournament.
Rory had a shot to retake the lead this week at the RBC Canadian Open, but that's now guaranteed not to happen, as the Northern Irishman had a disastrous day at TPC Toronto on Friday, shooting an 8-over 78 to miss the cut by a whopping 12 shots.
And not only did McIlroy fail to make the weekend for the first time since last year's Open Championship, his 149th-place finish after 36 holes marks the worst result of his entire PGA Tour career, which isn't something you want the week before the U.S. Open, especially a U.S. Open at Oakmont.
Rory McIlroy is "concerned" following his dreadful day at the RBC Canadian Open
Tied for 119th after an opening-round 71, McIlroy needed a strong Friday to give himself a shot at making the cut.
But after kicking off his second round with four consecutive pars, that opportunity went out the window when Rory made a quadruple-bogey eight on the par-4 fifth hole, finding the native area to the right off the tee before hitting his second shot well over the gallery into a penalty area, so far, in fact, that most didn't even seem to realize that his ball had flown over their heads.
He then hit a poor provisional, which also failed to find the putting surface, and was forced to use that ball, as the other was lost. After taking his penalty stroke, he hit his fifth back over the front side of the green, chipped up to roughly eight feet with his sixth, and two-putted for a snowman.
But the struggles didn't end there, as McIlroy made bogeys at Nos. 8 and 10 before carding a double at the par-3 11th, adding another bogey at the 13th. He finally made his first birdie of the day at the 15th but gave that shot back with yet another bogey at the 17th. He did at least end on a positive note with a birdie at the 18th, but that was one of the very few positives for the week.
With his 9-over total, McIlroy, as mentioned, missed the cut by a dozen shots and was 21 shots behind 36-hole leader Cameron Champ (-12) when he walked off the course.
Following all the driver controversy at Quail Hollow, Rory had a new big stick in the bag at TPC Toronto, but it failed him something fierce on Friday, as he missed 10 fairways and ranked second-to-last in the field in strokes gained off the tee.
Again, that's not what you want when heading to a place like Oakmont, where accuracy off the tee will be crucial given how severe the rough is going to be for the U.S. Open. And McIlroy is well aware that he needs to fix this issue in a hurry.
"Yeah, of course it concerns me," McIlroy said following his second round. "You don't wanna shoot high scores like I did today. Still, I felt like I came here obviously with a new driver, thinking that was sort of going to be good and solve some of the problems off the tee, but it didn't.
"So, yeah, obviously going to Oakmont next week, what you need to do more than anything else is hit fairways. So, yeah, still sort of searching for the missing piece off the tee, and for me, when I get that part of the game clicking, then everything falls into place. Right now, that isn't, and that's a concern going into next week."
Rory also stated that he plans to spend his unexpected weekend off testing new drivers, so it'll be interesting to see what's in his bag when the U.S. Open kicks off next Thursday.