Rory McIlroy suffered a triple-bogey setback early in his second round on Friday at the PGA Championship while Swede Anders Hansen and American D.A. Points charged after leader Steve Stricker.
Reigning US Open champion McIlroy, playing with a bandage on his right arm to ease the pain of a strained wrist tendon, started off the 10th tee with a bogey but responded with birdies at the par-5 12th and par-3 16th. But just as the 22-year-old Northern Irsh prodigy cracked par, he wound up taking a 6 on the par-3 17th and making the turn at Atlanta Athletic Club two-over for the year’s final major tournament. McIlroy was injured Thursday when he struck a tree root with his second shot on the third hole, but played through the pain for an opening-round par-70. He considered withdrawing but performed flawlessly on the practice range and joined Masters champion Charl Schwartzel and British Open winner Darren Clarke once again in the feature pairing.
Two other players did withdraw – Rocco Mediate with injury after an opening 79 while fellow American J.B. Hayes, who shot 80 in round one, pulled out due to illness. Stricker, who matched a major tournament record by firing a seven-under 63 on Thursday to seize the lead, and countryman Jerry Kelly, his pal and nearest rival at 65, were set to be among the last to tee off Friday.
Sharing third at four-under overall while still on the course early in round two were Hansen, two-under on his second round through 13 holes, and Points, who was three-under on the day through eight holes. Trevor Immelman, the 2008 Masters champion from South Africa, made four birdies and three bogeys on the front nine but his birdie at nine made him the only player on the course at two-under, one shot behind fifth-place Scott Verplank, another afternoon starter. US players dominated the leaderboard, each hoping to be the one to hoist the Wanamaker Trophy, take the top prize of $1.445 million from the $8 million event and snap a record American win drought of six majors. “What has happened in the last six majors, I think, fuels the fire of Americans to try to get better and to work at it to try to break that streak, no doubt,” Stricker said. Then there was the dismal showing of Tiger Woods, a 14-time major champion who opened with a 77 to stand 14 strokes off the pace, sharing 129th and in jeopardy of missing the cut for only the third time at a major after the 2009 British Open and 2006 US Open. Healthy again after going nearly four months without a competitive 18 holes, Woods nevertheless staggered in with three double bogeys in his worst opening round at a major and his worst round in any US major. Woods, among the late starters Friday, has not won any title since his infamous sex scandal unfurled in November of 2009 and has not won a major title since the 2008 US Open. Shaun Micheel, the 2003 PGA Championship winner, collapsed after a first-round 66 had put him third, going nine-over through 12 holes in round two. England’s Simon Dyson, one-over for the day after a double bogey at the eighth, was on one-under overall at the turn, leading the charge for the “Chubby Slam”, a potential sweep of the year’s major titles by players managed by Andrew “Chubby” Chandler.
England’s World No. 2 Lee Westwood, whom Chandler had tabbed as his stable pick to win this week, was at level par overall after going one-under for the round on the back nine. Australian Jason Day, a runner-up at the Masters and US Open, played his back nine at level par to stay one-over for the tournament.
