Rory McIlroy described his late sprint to the clubhouse to beat the dark as a ‘s***show after he birdied 18 to make the halfway cut at the BMW PGA Championship.
After a morning fog delay, it was a sprint to the clubhouse coupled with an agonising wait on the 18th tee at Wentworth which made for a compelling climax to Friday’s second round.
Two shots outside the cut with four to play, McIlroy birdied 15 after stiffing his approach to a foot before pace of play came to a shuddering halt with the par fives 17 and 18 creating a logjam of eager golfers looking to avoid coming back at dawn to finish their second rounds. Three different groups were on the 18th tee, each taking a spectators seat to watch each other tee off and essentially playing in a six some on the 18th, McIlroy two-putted the 18th from 35-feet for birdie and a one-under-par total.
“The fog obviously delayed things but I’ve never remembered having that many players on 17 and 18. It’s not as if they teed us off in tighter slots or anything,” said McIlroy.
“It’s hard for me trying to play the last well and make the cut, it’s a bit of a mad dash and a scramble to get finished. I don’t know what you could do about that apart from less players in the field.”
After a ho-hum level-par 72 on Thursday, the four-time major champion roared out of the traps with birdies on the fourth and seventh to lift himself onto the fringes of contention before a familiar shot into the water hazard cost him a double bogey on the 8th. A bogey on the par-5 12th dropped him two shots below the cut line before two birdies in his last four holes meant that all 12 Ryder Cupper made the cut.
“Started off nicely. And then yeah, a couple, like two poor shots: The wedge shot on the 8th hole and the drive left on 12. Apart from that, it was okay.
“I haven’t had my best over the last couple of days but I don’t feel like I’m too far away so hopefully I get an opportunity to play another couple of rounds here tomorrow, and you know, try to finish the week off on a good, positive note.”
“I did a bit of work on Wednesday afternoon, just my clubface and my path are a little too far apart, putts are too far to the left, clubface is getting a bit too far to the right. A bad shot is like that right shot but sometimes if I try to over-correct it, but the face and the path don’t match up, like I did on 12. Just a little bit of work.
“I mean, again, I don’t feel like it’s too far away. I feel like my go-to shot at the minute is a fade, which is a little unusual for me. My sort of first instinct is to aim right of the target and play a draw, but if that’s not coming truly to me, then it just takes me a little while to get used to aiming the ball either at the target or left of the target and just letting it come back out.”
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