Moment furious Rory McIlroy launches his club in anger as US Open woes continue
Proper news from Britain - News from Britain you won’t find anywhere else. Not the tosh the big media force-feed you every day!
Rory McIlroy's frustrations boiled over at the US Open on Friday as his worrying run of post-Masters form continued.
While fighting to get back on the right side of the cut line after a four-over-par 74 on Thursday, the Northern Irishman endured similar difficulties in his second round on a testing Oakmont surface.
And after miscuing his second shot on the venue's monster par-five, 647-yard 12th hole, he couldn't resist launching his club in fury as he dropped to +8.
That score left him just one shot behind the projected cut line, before he was able to pull level with it after pulling out a birdie on the 14th.
Yet McIlroy still has work to do if he wants to avoid humiliation at the third major championship of the year in Pennsylvania.
The 36-year-old has struggled since ending his major drought and completing a career Grand Slam at the Masters in April, having finished 14 shots behind PGA Championship winner Scottie Scheffler the following month and missed the cut at the Canadian Open last week.
As things stand, he is 10 shots behind current US Open leaders JJ Spaun, Thomas Detry and Sam Burns.
McIlroy's high from finally achieving the career Grand Slam has appeared to come to a very quick end in the weeks since that victory in April.
Add to that his controversy surrounding his TaylorMade driver at the PGA Championship and the rise of Scheffler and there's some cause for concern.
All of this combined has led to some fears from Irish golfer and former European Ryder captain Paul McGinley, who claimed earlier in the week that Rory was not his normal self at a press conference ahead of the US Open.
Speaking to Sky Sports, McGinley said, 'You'd have to say it was very worrying looking at his press conference there. His eyes weren't alive. The energy was not there.
'He certainly didn't have the pointy elbows the way we saw coming into the Masters. [At the Masters] he was a man on a mission, he was a man on a bounce, he was a man out to prove something. "Get out of my way, here I come." You could see that and feel the energy.
'You don't see it at the moment. I know from my own experience, when you win tournaments, you check out. You don't feel the same. You want to be there, and you put in the energy, but something inside you is just missing.
'It takes some time for that to reset, and I think he's going through a period of that. He's completed a Grand Slam – it's a huge achievement.
'I'm no psychologist but it looks like the air has been sucked out of him a little since that, not just in the way he's played but in his press conferences. It's very un-Rory-like to have such low energy. This is not normal Rory.
'This is not when he's at his best. In my opinion, I think he's at his best when he's p***ed off or following off a big loss or something that went wrong.'
