Rory McIlroy doesn’t often get credit for his battling qualities but he showed a warrior’s spirit to hold off dogged American Kevin Na and make it through the group stages of the WGC-Dell Match Play Championship. In a classic encounter that went to the second extra hole, the Northern Irishman responded to being two down early on with a wonderful burst of scoring that saw him register six birdies in nine holes. Still he couldn’t shake off Na, who mustered plenty of birdies of his own. As so often, however, the more tense the match got the better McIlroy played. He almost holed successive pitch shots at the 16th and 17th before finally grabbing the win at the 20th after his opponent had driven into a hazard.
