Rusty Rory McIlroy narrowly makes cut in BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth

McIlroy took two weeks off after losing out in a play-off at the Omega European Masters and revealed at the start of the week that he had to “drag myself off the sofa” before making the journey to Wentworth.

The world number two certainly looked rusty as he played his last 11 holes in seven over par in an opening 76 and he made hard work of a second round of 69 to make the cut on the mark of one over par - 12 shots adrift of joint leaders Jon Rahm and Danny Willett.

“I’m happy to be here for the weekend,” McIlroy said. “I had to battle hard out there just to be here. I’m proud of myself for hanging in.

“My golf over the first couple days hasn’t been what I would have expected but I guess I probably deserve that. I didn’t really do much the last couple of weeks and when you don’t practice you don’t keep on top of it, some things start to creep into your game.

“My alignment got off a little bit and the more my alignment gets off then the more the club drops underneath the plane for me, and then the bigger the misses are each way. I’ll block it out to the right or turn it over too much to the left.

“I worked a good bit on that yesterday and felt like I made some good strides, but it’s obviously different trying to do it on the range than trying to do it on the golf course.”

McIlroy made the ideal start on Friday with a birdie on the first and picked up another on the fourth, but followed a bogey on the fifth with a run of eight straight pars before a superb tee shot to the 14th set up a tap-in birdie.

After a long delay on the 15th while a spectator on the hole required medical attention, McIlroy chipped in for a vital birdie on the 16th and scrambled a par on the last after almost hitting his long-iron approach out of bounds.

“I’m a long way back but if I can shoot six or seven under tomorrow I might still be in it,” added McIlroy, who will partner his father Gerry in next week’s Dunhill Links Championship in Scotland.

“It’s a couple of days to practice and get ready, I don’t want to let my dad down in the Dunhill. He was critiquing me on the way to the course this morning!”