Rory McIlroy blasts ‘obsolete’ Travelers Championship course after week of low scores

CROMWELL, Conn. — Rory McIlroy delivered a stinger of a parting shot to the Travelers Championship after he completed his final round Sunday, finishing in a tie for seventh at 18-under, five shots behind winner Keegan Bradley.

McIlroy was mildly critical of the crazy low scores this week, saying, “I don’t particularly like when a tournament is like this. Unfortunately, technology has passed this course by, right? It sort of has made it obsolete, especially as soft as it has been with a little bit of rain that we had.

“Like the conversations going back to limiting the golf ball and stuff like that, when we come to courses like this, they just don’t present the challenge that they used to.’’

Travelers tournament officials passed the reason for so many scores in the low 60s to an unusually cool spring that didn’t allow TPC River Highlands to firm up enough, exacerbated by the rain that fell Friday into Saturday that softened the course even more.

McIlroy looked like he was poised to make a legit run at Bradley when he birdied five of his first eight holes to get to 17-under par.

But his round stalled with a bogey on No. 9 and he managed only two more birdies on the gettable back nine.

“I got off to a hot start, which was nice and what I felt like I needed, and then hit a drive on nine that I didn’t think was that bad (and it) ended up against the boundary fence and made a bogey there, which halted the momentum that I had,’’ McIlroy said. “Then just couldn’t get anything to drop over those last few holes. I knew I was never going to win with the way Keegan was playing, but I felt like I probably needed a couple more birdies to finish Top 5.’’

It was a weird week for McIlroy, who played only nine holes in the Wednesday pro-am as his only prep for the tournament.

He felt like he needed the rest after last week’s U.S. Open.

“Last Sunday (the U.S. Open final round) feels like a month ago at this point, but coming off the disappointment of the U.S. Open, coming straight here and sort of trying to refocus and forget about what happened in L.A. and tee it up here and play well, I thought was pretty good,’’ McIlroy said. “I could have sort of went through the motions this week and mailed it in a little bit. I tried hard until the end and put in a decent performance.’’