It was a sprint to the clubhouse for Rory McIlroy Friday at the BMW PGA Championship, where a fast finish – and an agonizing wait – made for a compelling end to the second round.
Two shots outside the cut line with four holes to play at Wentworth, McIlroy stuffed his approach to a foot on the 15th hole. But that’s when the pace of play slowed to a halt, with the course’s consecutive par 5s to finish creating a logjam with three different groups on the 18th tee.
Essentially playing as a sixsome on the final hole, McIlroy belted a drive into the fairway and then launched a long iron that crept onto the front edge. With the green illuminated by the giant leaderboard to the right of the putting surface, McIlroy two-putted from 40 feet for a final birdie to make the cut on the number, at 1-under 143.
Rory birdies the last to move above the cut line. #BMWPGA | #RolexSeries pic.twitter.com/E4akEI66DF
— DP World Tour (@DPWorldTour) September 15, 2023
“It was a sh*tshow,” McIlroy told on-site reporters. “The [morning] 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. We’re (almost) the last group to maybe get done, so we were maybe fortunate that way, but it’s hard for me trying to play the last well and make the cut - it was a bit of a mad dash and a scramble to get finished.”
The late heroics in near-darkness spared McIlroy a stunning early exit at the DP World Tour’s flagship event. He hadn’t missed a cut anywhere since the Masters, finishing 16th or better in every event since mid-May.
McIlroy was playing alongside two European Ryder Cup teammates, Ludvig Aberg and Viktor Hovland, both of whom bested the world No. 2 through two rounds. Aberg, the hotshot rookie, is tied for the halfway lead at 10 under, while Hovland is five shots back.
All 12 European Ryder Cuppers made the cut.
McIlroy moved on to the weekend after rounds of 72-71 in his final appearance before the Ryder Cup. Following the BMW PGA, he will attend a bachelor party in Mykonos before returning to London for a few days of prep ahead of the matches in Rome.
