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• Rory McIlroy bounces back to form in the Memorial Tournament

  Rory McIlroy bounced back from the nightmare finish to his opening round on day two of the prestigious Memorial Tournament at Muirfield Village.

  Just two days after tournament host Jack Nicklaus had lamented McIlroy’s occasional lapses in concentration, the four-time major winner carded a triple bogey on the 18th to card a level-par 72.

  “I don’t know whether his is a constant lack of being able to keep that concentration for the whole thing or not, because sometimes he (goes) par, par, par, double, eight,” Nicklaus said in his pre-event press conference.

  “He does that sometimes.”

  It was not an eight on Thursday but a nevertheless destructive seven on the par-four 18th, where his drive finished in deep rough on a steep side slope.

  McIlroy could only hack his ball almost sideways into more rough and he caught a flier with his third before taking four shots to get down from the back of the green.

  “I felt good about everything that I did yesterday,” McIlroy said after carding six birdies and two bogeys in a second round of 68.

  “I got one bad break on 18 with that ball finishing on the bank of the bunker. So I really feel like I’m one shot out of leading this golf tournament.

  “(If) that rolls down into the bunker, hopefully I’m able to hit it on the green and make a four and instead of standing here at four under I would be at seven under and feeling really good about everything.

  “I felt like I did a lot of really good things yesterday and I did a lot of good things right, so I can’t let that one sort of unlucky break sort of hide the fact that everything else was working pretty well.”

  At four under par McIlroy was three shots off the early clubhouse lead held by Hideki Matsuyama, the former Masters champion carding a superb bogey-free 65 to lead by one from Patrick Cantlay and David Lipsky.

• Matt Wallace one stroke behind lead after first day of PGA Memorial in Ohio

  Englishman Matt Wallace is one stroke behind leader Davis Riley after the first day of the PGA Memorial Tournament on Thursday, on a hot day in Dublin, Ohio.

  Wallace, who has one PGA tour win, had a strong start to the tournament, hitting six birdies and two bogeys to finish the day with 68 and four under.

  Fellow countryman Danny Willett was a stroke behind Wallace, finishing tied in  third with seven others.

  Willett, 35, who also has one PGA tour victory to his name, hit four birdies, an eagle and three bogeys to finish on three under par at Muirfield Village Golf Course.

  Irishman Shane Lowry finished the day tied with Willett, after he had five consecutive birdies, alongside Jordan Spieth and David Lipsky.

  Leader Davis Riley played the conditions well and is hoping to win his second PGA tour title, hitting just one bogey and six birdies to finish on five under.

  Rory McIlroy finished even for the day with a triple bogey on the last hole undoing his good work during the day.

  He finished tied in 33rd place after hitting four birdies before the last hole.

  World number one Scottie Scheffler had his highest opening round since October 2021, finishing on two over par and seven strokes behind the lead.

• I don’t think LIV golfers should be on European Ryder Cup team – Rory McIlroy

  Rory McIlroy has reiterated his opposition to LIV Golf players being allowed to represent Europe in the Ryder Cup.

  World number two Jon Rahm believes the likes of Sergio Garcia, with whom he formed a successful partnership in 2021, should be able to compete in Rome and said he was sad that “politics have gotten in the way” of the biennial event.

  Garcia is the leading points scorer in Ryder Cup history, but made himself ineligible by resigning from the DP World Tour in the wake of increased sanctions being imposed for playing LIV Golf events without permission.

  American players remain eligible despite being banned or resigning from the PGA Tour in the wake of joining the Saudi-funded circuit, with Brooks Koepka set to qualify automatically following his victory in the US PGA Championship.

  “I certainly think Brooks deserves to be on the United States team,” McIlroy said in his pre-tournament presser ahead of the Memorial Tournament.

  “I think with how he’s played, I mean, he’s second in the US standings, (having) only played two counting events.

  “I don’t know if there’s anyone else on the LIV roster that would make the team on merit and how they’re playing. But Brooks is definitely a guy that I think deserves to be on the US team.

  “But I have different feelings about the European team and the other side and sort of how that has all transpired and, yeah, I don’t think any of those guys should be a part of the European team.”

  McIlroy finished in a tie for seventh behind Koepka at Oak Hill, despite struggling with his long game, but the lack of faith in his “biggest weapon” may not prove as much of an issue at Muirfield Village.

  “I can’t remember a time where I felt so uncomfortable over the ball for four days,” McIlroy said.

  “The golf course allowed me to manage it. There was only two holes I felt at Oak Hill that really penalised big misses, which was six and seven. So you take those two holes out of it and it was what I would describe as a bogey golf course.

  “It was very hard to make anything worse than a bogey. So you hit it in the rough off the tee, you got these openings into greens, you can run it up into the openings, make your par and move on.

  “I needed to go back home and work on some things and, yeah, feeling a lot better about it, not fighting the club face quite as much. Feel a little bit more free, which is obviously a nice feeling.

  “I think the one thing here, if you look at the recent winners, maybe apart from Jon (Rahm), they have all been sort of like medium-length hitters.

  “I only hit four or five drivers on this golf course so it takes the driver out of my hands a lot. A lot of fairways bottleneck at like 330, 340 (yards) so the biggest weapon in my bag isn’t quite the weapon that it is at some other golf courses.

  “I have played okay here and had some decent finishes, but I guess it sort of surprises me with the four par fives and the way the golf course sets up that I haven’t at least had a real chance to win here.”