Els rediscovers form in Dubai, McIlroy slips off pace

Golf world No 2 Rory McIlroy drops his club on his second shot of the eighth hole in his second round of the Dubai Desert Classic.

In second place on 67 were Spain’s Rafael Cabrera-Bello, Brett Rumford of Australia, South African Trevor Fisher and Peter Hanson of Sweden.

Denmark’s Soren Kjeldsen had set the clubhouse target after a flawless 66 left him on 10 under par, one ahead of compatriot Joachim B Hansen, who had earlier completed a spectacular 64.

Rory McIlroy started the defense of his Dubai Desert Classic title with a bogey but battled back to post a 4-under 68 on Thursday, leaving him two shots off the lead. At six strokes behind the halfway leader, Rafa Cabrera-Bello, retaining the Desert Classic remains a strong possibility.

At one stage he looked as though he might miss the cut after shooting three-over on the front nine.

“It’s always nice to be back in Dubai, and I guess the last couple of times I’ve played here, I’ve done pretty well, so I’m sort of going for three in a row in Dubai with winning here a year ago, and then with the DP World”, added McIlroy.

The Northern Ulsterman had another bad start in the second round of the Omega Dubai Desert Classic and it got even worse as the day progressed. “I’ve had some bad years but that was probably the worst”.

“I need to play aggressive, keep playing as good as I am to give myself a chance”, Cabrera-Bello said. “It was hard out there with the wind”. I mean, you cannot play the game if you can’t putt. It was windy. I didn’t quite find my tempo but the putting was extremely hot today. I bogeyed 11 and had a 6-footer for par on 12, and if I missed that, 1-over for the tournament, would have been a long way back from there.

“I’m expecting the leaders to get to 14 or 15 under and being seven back is a tall order”, McIlroy told Sky Sports.

“That’s really what’s cost me this week, and depending on what the guys do this afternoon, I might be just a few shots too far back to make that up tomorrow”.

After carding a birdie-two at the 15th, McIlroy picked up another shot at the 17th before finding the par-five final green in two and two-putting for a seventh gain of the day. “My scores haven’t yet haven’t really shown it yet (he finished T-29 in Qatar) but I feel like things are coming around”. I’ve putted really well here before, especially 2012. I just wasn’t committing to the lines I was picking. I didn’t get off to a great start yesterday and got off to another slow one today, being two-over through four on this golf course when you have a couple of good birdie chances there wasn’t great.