Rory McIlroy likes his position heading into third round

Rory McIlroy wasn’t looking at names, only numbers. The cast of characters still on the course ahead of him Friday afternoon was irrelevant to the clubhouse leader, who was at 3-under par.

“If anything, I don’t really look at the names on the left of the leaderboard,” he said. “I’m looking at the number that’s on the very far right just to see how many shots I’m back. Doesn’t make a difference to me who it is up there. I want to win this golf tournament, and I want to finish on the lowest score possible, and whoever that is ahead of me at that point, I just want to finish one better than that.”

The world No. 3, seeking to fulfill his career Grand Slam quest, will be in the final group today with the world No. 2 defending champion who chased the Grand Slam a year ago. But whether it was Jordan Spieth or a lesser accomplished name would not change McIlroy’s perspective on the task ahead.

“I’ve only got the mental capacity to focus on me right now and especially how tough it is out there,” McIlroy said. “Just focusing on myself, battling and grinding and digging deep when I need to. I think I’m going to have to do that again (Saturday) regardless of who I play with, because it looks like the conditions are going to be similar.”

McIlroy had good reason to be optimistic about his position when he escaped the 18th hole with a par save from the trees. With Spieth making late bogeys on Nos. 16 and 17, McIlroy will start the weekend only one shot behind.

“I know I’m in a good position going into the weekend, and I’m happy with that,” he said. “It’s a great round and it’s nice to be up there near the lead going into the weekend here instead of on the cut line and having to battle back where I found myself the last couple years.”

It was quite a turnaround on another windy day with Au­gusta National playing unforgivingly. After dropping four shots starting with a double bogey on No. 4 through a bogey on No. 11, McIlroy was eight shots behind a hot-starting Spieth. But birdies on Nos. 13 and 15 followed by a 40-foot birdie on No. 16 gave McIlroy his eighth-consecutive under-par round at Augusta.

“The birdie on 16 was a bit of a bonus, and then a great up-and-down on 18, too, for par,” he said. “It was really important to get that ball up and down, to make par, and to finish on 3-under. I knew no one had finished in the clubhouse at 3-under, and that’s what I wanted to do.

“The most comfortable thing for me on this golf course is knowing that even if you are five or six shots back, things can change quite quickly. I’ve been on the opposite end of that where things can start to get away from you.”

That was the case a year ago, when McIlroy was trying to chase down a runaway Spieth on Friday and ended up shooting himself out of the tournament with a front-nine 40. Even a field-best 10-under-par weekend could only lift him to a fourth-place finish, six shots behind the winner.

That weekend, however, was a boost to McIlroy’s confidence at Augusta.

“If I can have a weekend this weekend like I did that last (year), I’d be very happy,” he said. “Obviously, with the position I was in last year going into the weekend, there wasn’t much pressure. You could go out there and freewheel it a little bit and try to make as many birdies as you could and the conditions were more benign, so you could go after the course a bit more.

“But I’ve played this golf course well on the weekend the last couple of years, and I have to take confidence from that. You know, hopefully it’s a third year in a row and a third weekend in a row where I can post a couple of good scores and see where that leaves me at the end of the week.”

McIlroy has said all week that he’s been trying to downplay the significance of what he can accomplish with a victory. He didn’t make an early trip to Au­gusta, and he stayed out of the Par-3 Contest to concentrate on getting prepared. The career Grand Slam and the elusive green jacket are not at the forefront of his mind.

“Look, I’m really trying to block that out,” he said. “It’s another golf tournament I’m trying to win. I’m trying to beat guys on this leaderboard that I’ve beaten before, so I need to take confidence from that and know that I’ve been in this position before. Maybe not on this golf course, but I’ve been in this position before in big tournaments and been able to get the job done.”