Golf: Woods out .. and hurt McIlroy set to follow

When the former world number one followed a six on Atlanta Athletic Club's 457-yard 11th with a seven at the 551-yard next it was the first time in his professional career he had recorded five double bogeys in a tournament.

Three had come in his opening seven-over-par 77 and at 11 over with seven to play he was an incredible 129th in the 153-strong field.

Only the leading 70 and ties qualify for the final 36 holes, so it was almost certain to be just the third time in 56 majors as a professional that Woods had made an early exit.

He was 16 strokes behind new leader Scott Verplank, who had taken over at the top with fellow American Steve Stricker following up his major record-equalling 63 with four bogeys in the first nine holes of his second round.

At the 11th Woods was in two bunkers and then went in the lake the other side of the green, while on the 12th he twice hooked deep into the trees. Verplank, who still had the fearsome finishing stretch to come, led by one from not only Stricker, but also their compatriots DA Points and Jason Dufner and Australian Adam Scott, winner of last week's world championship in Akron.

Meanwhile, Rory McIlroy was left wishing he could have one shot again after a second round 73, but it was not the stroke you probably think.

Rather than the moment he injured his right arm against a tree root on day one, it was his six-iron tee shot to the short 17th on his return.

Suffering from a strained tendon and thankfully nothing more serious, the 22-year-old US Open champion, his arm still bandaged, had moved only two strokes off third place when he came to his eighth hole of the day.

It came up short in the lake and by three-putting for a triple bogey six McIlroy's hopes of a second major title this season suffered a huge blow.

"Even with a broken wrist I should be putting better than this," he said.

The leading European at that stage was Dane Anders Hansen, joint sixth on three under, while world number two Lee Westwood was one under after a 68.

McIlroy added: "Yesterday there were a couple of points where I thought it might have been better to walk in, but I wanted to play through and I felt like I'm hitting the ball OK.

"When I woke up this morning (after a hospital scan revealed no tear) it was stiff, but it wasn't as painful."

He warmed up on the range and practice putting green for only 25 minutes rather than his usual hour or more, but was never in doubt that he could continue the last major of the year.

On his triple bogey, he said: "I was between six and seven-iron (a new club sent from California overnight after he broke his original against the tree root) and I ended up going with six, but the wind affected it a little more than I wanted it to."

Lee Westwood's pursuit of a fifth major - this is the 55th of his career - was very much still alive.

The Worksop golfer looked exhausted as he finished another slow and hot round, but when asked about the speed of play, said: "The last thing I wanted today was to move quicker."

He went into the tournament vowing to try less hard in the hope that it would pay dividends.

"It's hard," he added. "It's difficult to try your hardest and not care about the results. They contradict one another.

"But I'm breezing around out there and trying to smile whenever I can and not really worry about what's going on too much.

"I think that's why after bogeying two and three I came back with birdies on four and five (and seven). Maybe the ‘trying too hard' me would have bogeyed the next after that."

Westwood had also been in the water on the 457-yard 11th, his second, but got out of it with a bogey and was well satisfied with his day's work in the end.

He had teed off yesterday with Stricker having already posted his 63.

"When you see seven under is leading you are under pressure," he added.

"But I said at the start of the week that I thought six under was going to win and it might still."

World number one Luke Donald double-bogeyed the second, but came back with birdies at the 12th and 13th to be level par with Simon Dyson, who fell back from fourth place on three under after suffering more back trouble, while alongside Westwood on one under was their fellow Englishman Ross Fisher.

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