McIlroy collapses at Wentworth

Defending champion Rory McIlroy missed the cut at the BMW PGA Championship on Friday after shooting a disastrous six-over-par 78.

Perhaps the score isn’t so surprising – despite the Northern Irishman’s victory here last year, he has also now missed the cut on three out of four occasions at Wentworth.

Still the result was unexpected, particularly as he was coming off victory in the WGC-Cadillac Match Play and a seven-shot triumph at Quail Hollow just last week.

McIlroy was already frustrated after his first-round 71 on Thursday, leading to another thrown club (he also tossed one into a lake at the WGC-Cadillac Championship a couple of months ago), but much worse was to come in round two.

The World No 1 slumped to six bogeys and a double bogey on Friday, with only two birdies able to limit the damage somewhat.

He finished the day on five over par, 15 shots off Francesco Molinari’s lead, and well below the cutline.

“I’m not going to read too much into it,” McIlroy said after one of his worst rounds in recent memory.

“It was inevitable at some point that the run was going to come to a bit of an end. I’m sort of back to my usual at Wentworth. It wasn’t great before I won last year and it hasn’t been great after.

“Any time you’re defending a title you want to come back and give it a valiant effort. This week wasn’t really that. I’m not angry. A little disappointed I’m not going to be here for the weekend, but if there was any weekend to miss, coming off the back of three good weeks in the States…. I’m probably in need of a little bit of a rest.

“If anything good comes out of this, it’s just that I get a couple of days over the weekend to refresh mentally.”

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