Out-of-sorts McIlroy crashes out in Houston
As England’s Lee Westwood presented his credentials as a candidate for the green jacket by posting a second round 68 to lurk a stroke behind clubhouse leaders Cameron Percy of Australia and American Alex Prugh on seven under, McIlroy carded a lacklustre 73 to finish two strokes outside the projected cut on three over par.
The 20-year old has been in low spirits since he injured his back practising in Dubai in January and he looked a forlorn figure as he was left facing his first weekend of unemployment since last May’s Players Championship at Sawgrass.
Missing a cut is one thing but McIlroy confessed afterwards that apart from a recent three-day visit to Augusta National, he has not enjoyed himself on the golf course since the start of the year.
Normally an exuberant character, he had little to smile about as he trudged away from the 18th yesterday having holed just one significant putt in two days and missed two tiddlers inside three and a half feet.
“I’m hitting it a lot better but still not getting it around the course,” said McIlroy, who followed a bogey at the first with birdies at the sixth and eighth before covering the back nine in two over, with a brace of bogey sixes on the par five 13th and 15th holes.
“I don’t really know what to say. It’s a lack of confidence. I’m just not there. It’s such a fine line between playing the way I did at the end of last year to playing the way I am now. It’s a couple of putts holed here and there or a good break. I just can’t find any momentum or something to get me going.”
Just one over par for the tournament with nine holes to play, McIlroy had a fighting chance of making the cut but his inadequate short game and his ice cold putter put paid to any hopes he might have had of surviving.
At the par-five 13th he tugged a fairway wood into a hazard and after chipping backwards to the fairway, he clumsily pitched 15 feet past the hole from around 30 yards short of the green and missed the putt.
Ironically, the longest putt he holed all week was a slippery 14 footer for par at the par-three 14th, where he recovered from an almost impossible lie in a greenside trap. But his week effectively ended the moment he bogeyed the par-five 15th.
Bunkered in two, he came up 40 yards short of the green with his third but after a brilliant flop shot to three feet, he lipped out for par and missed long-range birdie chances on the last three greens.
The Holywood starlet tried hard to look on the bright side but confessed that he hasn’t felt happy on a golf course since he visited Augusta a few weeks ago.
“I’m really looking forward to next week and can’t wait to get there. It’s just a shame I couldn’t have prepared a little better this week,” he said. “When I went there for three days after Doral it was the happiest I’d felt on the golf course for a while. Hopefully I can get back there again and get a little kick out of it. Hopefully that’s a little kick that’ll get me going again.
“I’ve seen signs this week that it’s definitely getting better. I wasn’t very happy with my game at Honda or Doral but I’ve seen signs this week and definitely I’ve hit better shots and that’s one positive to take from it.”
Westwood advised McIlroy to ignore the advice of third parties, explaining: “The secret is not to panic and to go back to what works for you. When you start to play poorly, you can listen to too many people and what I have done over the years is to listen to what the little voice inside your head is telling you as opposed to what other people are saying.”
Late starter Padraig Harrington picked up three birdies in his first four holes to get within two shots of the clubhouse lead on six under par.
But he slipped back with a double bogey six at the 18th, his ninth, where he pulled his 180-yard approach from a fairway bunker into the lake that hugs the left-hand side of the green.
In-form South African Ernie Els carded a 74 to finish on level par but there were problems for world number three Phil Mickelson, who racked up a triple bogey seven at the 10th to slip back to one under par.
Turning the club upside down and playing right handed in an attempt to escape from a lateral hazard, he incurred a one-stroke penalty after his ball hit a bush, struck him on the leg and rebounded into the hazard, forcing him to take a penalty drop.
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