Golf

The ‘fifth Major’, The TPC Championship, will resume today without any Irish involvement after a torrid day for our trio yesterday.

Rory McIlroy is likely to relinquish his world number one crown yet again after another disastrous week at Sawgrass. The Holywood man shot a 76 last night, and combined with his opening 72, McIlroy missed the cut by four strokes.

It’s the third time the world’s best golfer has failed to make it to the weekend at Sawgrass and afterwards he said that he “just can't quite get to grips with”. If Rory is struggling, we can’t imagine how tough it would be for us mere mortals.

Anyway, with Luke Donald in flying form – the Englishman is -3 and in a tie for 17^th - it looks likely that the moniker of world’s top golfer will slip from McIlroy yet again on Monday morning.

And it wasn’t just McIlroy that struggled, his compatriots did too. Graeme McDowell shot a 71 to sit right on the cut mark and he faced an agonizing wait to realise that he was heading home.

But the saddest story was that of Padraig Harrington. After Day One, the Dubliner was in prime position after shooting a 69 but yesterday Paddy shot five bogeys and one double bogey and he eventually carded a 75 and he, like McDowell, missed the cut by just one stroke.

At the head of affairs are three Americans, Kevin Na, Zach Johnson and Matt Kuchar, who are all on -8.

Better luck next year for the Irish lads then.