PGA Championship 2021: Watch Rory McIlroy throw his golf ball into the abyss after another bogey on a par 5

It’s a rhetorical question, but the fact it’s being asked after watching Rory McIlroy struggle at the Ocean Course is telling.

Has anyone every won a major shooting over par on the par 5s?

McIlroy certainly didn’t do it when he won the 2012 PGA at Kiawah, and the answer is a hard no, at least in the modern era. Which is why McIlroy winning this week at the PGA Championship, much less making the cut, seems like a long shot given how he’s handled the par 5s so far at the Kiawah.

En route to a three-over 75on Thursday, McIlroy made bogeys on three of the four par 5s. Then on Friday as he started his second round in the afternoon, he walked up to the tee on the par-5 second hole and pipped a driver straight down the fairway into a 25 mile per-hour wind. At last!

But then using a 3-wood with hopes of reaching the green, McIlroy’s second shot ballooned into the air and landed in a the greenside bunker short of the green. He then blasted his third shot over the green into rough behind the back collar. A chip to 15 feet and a missed par attempt and suddenly it was another 6 on the scorecard.

McIlroy’s reaction afterward was telling yet predictable:

If you’ve got a second, watch it again but do it dragging the play button so it’s in slow mo. Looks a little like a LeRoy Niemann painting, no?

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