Thursday 19 September 2019 19:38, UK
Rory McIlroy will need to dig deep on Friday to avoid missing the cut at the BMW PGA Championship for the fifth time in 10 starts after opening with an error-strewn 76.
McIlroy looked in great shape in the early stages of his first round, piping a 340-yard drive down the first and starting with three solid pars before he eagled the fourth and birdied the next, but his game began to unravel after a three-putt bogey at the eighth.
The world No 2 dropped three shots in a row around the turn and his problems increased at the long 17th, where he pulled his first drive out-of-bounds, almost did the same with his provisional, and went on to run up a double-bogey seven.
And it looked like worse would follow at the last when he again appeared to be out-of-bounds from the tee, this time on the right, and he had to go back to the tee after finding his ball in an unplayable lie in the foliage before eventually holing from 20 feet to salvage a bogey-six.
McIlroy had earlier looked set to keep pace with early leader Matt Wallace when he holed from 12 feet for eagle at the fourth before converting an excellent tee-shot to the short fifth, but his putting error on the eighth would spark a dreadful run of holes.
He went from bunker to bunker at the ninth and dropped another shot, and he was back to level for the day when he blocked a mid-iron way right of the green at the short 10th and was unable to get up and down.
The 2014 champion narrowly avoided four bogeys in a row when he saved par from 10 feet at the 11th, and he lifted his spirits with a birdie at 12 only for his long-game to falter again and lead to further blemishes at two of the next three holes.
McIlroy cut a disconsolate figure as he trudged to the 18th tee with a seven on his card at the penultimate hole, and his shoulders slumped further when his first tee shot disappeared into the bushes on the right, with his provisional on a similar line and nestling in the right rough.
He found his first but decided there was no value in attempting to chop it back into play and, after hitching a ride on a buggy back to the tee, his outstretched right arm appeared to signal that yet another ball was heading beyond the white markers.
But it stayed in play and the 30-year-old managed to avoid a seven-seven finish with a great putt down the slope, although he now has it all to do in the second round to make sure he is around for the weekend.
