RORY MCILROY FEELS that his late birdie run has kept him in the hunt for the $18 million winner’s cheque at the Tour Championship.

But he admits that he will need a helping hand from Scottie Scheffler if he is to whittle away the leader’s eight-shot advantage and close the gap.

McIlroy’s disastrous start saw him open with a triple bogey and then a bogey at East Lake on Thursday.

That, coupled with the handicapped scores assigned to each player before teeing off, left him a massive 10 shots behind Scheffler early on.

But McIlroy bounced back, and finished with four birdies in his last five holes, for a round of three-under par 67 which moved him into a tie for sixth place.

Scheffler, however, leads the field by five after he turned the screw at the top and improved from his starting score of 10-under to finish the day on 15-under.

Xander Schauffele is next best on 10-under ahead of Matt Fitzpatrick (-9) and Joaquin Niemann and Patrick Cantlay (both -8).

“The last few holes there were huge,” McIlroy said afterwards.

“I felt like I played myself out of the tournament the first few holes, and then I feel like I played myself back into the tournament the last few holes.

“It depends what Scottie does. I can go out and shoot a really good score tomorrow, but if Scottie is seven or eight or whatever he is ahead of me, then it makes things really difficult.

“But if I go out and shoot a good score tomorrow and Scottie has a lacklustre day, then he brings a lot of guys in it, and over 36 holes anything can happen.

“I think tomorrow is a pretty pivotal day for the rest of the field just to try to get a little closer to where Scottie is.”

And while it is a long way back for McIlroy, he took some comfort in the fact that he has climbed similar mountains before — not least at the Deutsche Bank Championship in 2016, where he was four-over after three holes of his opening round and rallied to win the tournament.

“It’s not like I haven’t done it before. But as you said, it’s different when you are giving strokes back.

“I sort of thought of [Wyndham Championship winner] Tom Kim a few weeks ago in Greensboro. He started with a quad and ended up going on to win the golf tournament.

“You know, it is possible. Anything can be done. I’m just really proud of how I fought back today.”

McIlroy will again be paired with Cameron Smith for his second round, which tees off at 6.25pm on Friday evening, but stressed that it is “business as usual” between the two despite Smith’s ongoing links to LIV Golf.

“Cam and I get on really well. Always have done.

“Again, I keep saying, no matter what decisions are made or what choices are made by anyone, it doesn’t make them a bad person. Does it make me disagree with them? Of course it does. But I disagree with a lot of people that I like and love.

“Yeah, it’s business as usual. If anything, he’s a really good guy to play with because he plays pretty quick and he has a nice rhythm. So it’s a nice pairing.”