‘Worst-ever session’ for Hamilton
McILROY MISSES THE CUT AFTER BUNKER HELL AT LAST
RORY McILROY missed his first Major cut in three years after a breathless comeback crashed off the rails at Oakmont.
The World No.3 leads a stellar list of big names who bombed out at the halfway stage, including Justin Rose, Phil Mickelson and Rickie Fowler.
But Masters champion Danny Willett put in a gutsy fightback to stick around for the weekend that still holds promise for fellow Englishman Lee Westwood and Ireland’s Shane Lowry.
They kept themselves very much in the hunt with their second rounds, although Westwood will curse that his roller- coaster 72 wasn’t much better after racking up six bogeys in a mid-round slump.
Yet it’s McIlroy who was kicking himself most after he blew apart, following a flying start to his bid to undo all the damage of his first round 77.
The Northern Irishman came LEWIS HAMILTON crashed out of qualifying in Baku, admitting it was the worst Saturday performance of his stellar career.
Starting a lowly 10th in his repaired Mercedes, Hamilton (right) also faces a tyre crisis ahead of today’s European Grand Prix.
He will surely be allowed, on safety grounds, to change the badly blistered set he wrecked wrestling this epic street track.
But the ones he has left flying out of the traps, stringing together four birdies in his first seven holes as he strived to deliver on his pre-round promise to get aggressive in his bid to fire himself back into the tournament.
But it all started to go wrong on the 17th – his eighth hole, having started off the 10th – when he threeputted after giving himself an eagle chance by driving the green.
Then a painful four-putt on the fourth hole, including three putts from inside just three feet, cost him dearly with a damaging double bogey.
But even then he was still going up his last hole in shape to scrape inside the cut line by the skin of his teeth – until a wayward drive found a bunker lining the right side of the ninth fairway.
His gamble to go for the green backfired spectacularly when he failed to even get out of the sand.
After splashing out at the second attempt, the writing was on the wall for the double- bogey six that followed, condemning him to a are little better and the omens are bleak, with title rival Nico Rosberg comfortably on pole.
As Hamilton’s problems mounted, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff called on the critics to lay off his morose racer.
The 31-year-old arrived at F1’s newest venue insisting he did not need more than a handful of laps in the Merc simulator he compared to a £200 PlayStation and would not bother with the track round of 71 to finish on eight over par – two shots outside the cut line.
A grim-faced McIlroy – whose missed cut is his first in a Major since The Open at Muirfield in 2013 – refused to speak as he trudged out of the recorder’s hut.
But Westwood was happy to stop and reflect on the composure he showed not to let his mid-round wobble blow him off course.
Westwood said: “The way I played in that second round, I could have blown myself out of the championship.
“So it was good to grind it out, be under par, be in the red, and have a chance at the weekend. I didn’t hit the ball very well. I struggled on the range this morning to find my swing and really couldn’t find it all morning until the last hole. I feel like I got a little feeling there.
“So I’m delighted with the way I played. It was a professional round of 72.
“The mistakes I made weren’t killers, weren’t disastrous.” inspection his rivals see as crucial. That seemed remarkably casual, compared to Rosberg, who had churned out 100 laps in the simulator and did a detailed lap of the track with his engineers. “Everyone does the preparation that is best for him. “He has won races and titles and we need to leave it to him to decide whether a track walk helps,” said Wolff. “The fact that there is a completely different perspective from the cockpit is a valid one.”
After running off twice, Hamilton clipped the wall to end the session sitting in a smoking, buckled mess of a Mercedes, his front right wheel flopping lamely, the suspension smashed.
“It was a rough session,” admitted Hamilton.
“Probably the worst session I’ve ever had.”
And he glumly ruled out victory.
“I highly doubt I can win,” he added.