Two weeks before he is due to begin the defence of his US Open title, Rory McIlroy is in the worst form of his professional life.
The Northern Irishman was condemned to his third missed cut in succession last night when a second-round 79 at Muirfield Village, seven over par, left him on six over at the Memorial Tournament in Dublin, Ohio. The cut was predicted to come at three over.
McIlroy missed the cut at The Players Championship at Sawgrass last month and also failed to make it to the weekend at the European Tour’s flagship PGA Championship at Wentworth last week.
With his US Open title defence set to start at the Olympic Club outside San Francisco on June 14, he has added next week’s St Jude Championship to his schedule in a bid to get his game back on track.
McIlroy, starting the day at one under par, was out in 38 yesterday after dropped shots at the 4th and 8th holes, then had a dreadful run of five dropped shots in four holes, with double bogeys at the par-five 11th and par-four 14th. Luke Donald, McIlroy’s playing partner, who has just usurped him as world No 1, made it safely through to the last two rounds after a 73 left him on even par.
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At 31, eight years older than McIlroy, Ross Fisher is too young to be living off his memories. And yet he was able to draw on them to good effect to move to the top of the leaderboard after two rounds of the ISPS Handa Wales Open.
Almost the forgotten man of European golf, Fisher had a round of 66 over the Twenty Ten course at Celtic Manor to finish the day on six under par and with a lead of two strokes over Lee Slattery, the overnight leader, who had a 71.
It was at Celtic Manor two years ago that the Englishman helped the Europe team to win back the Ryder Cup from the United States. Since then he has found himself going backwards. After claiming one win a year between 2007 and 2010 — his most recent victory was at the 2010 Irish Open — he has barely contended. He had no top-five finishes on tour last year and has fallen to No 157 in the world rankings from a high of No 17 in 2009, the year in which he led in all four majors.
Fisher’s ability is better than that record would suggest, although a stroke average of 72.62 this season is very poor, and now he is looking for good omens. “It’s always nice to come back to a good hunting ground, familiar turf,” he said.
“There are certain spots that you think, ‘The pin was there in the Ryder Cup’, or, ‘I hit it here and holed the putt’. You have those memories and you try to feed off them.”Asked about his poor form since that week, Fisher did not hide behind excuses. “You’ve just got to deal with it,” he said. “That’s golf: peaks and troughs.”