McIlroy's love life hits a stumbling block at St Andrews

At 21 years of age, there's a fair chance that Rory McIlroy has never experienced true love. But after his woeful second round at St Andrews on Friday, the Daily Mail's Derek Lawrenson feels sure McIlroy now knows what it feels like to be dumped by a trusted partner...

That's the trouble with love affairs, isn't it? Just when you're completely smitten and think it will always run smooth, you run into a little turbulence and it knocks you sideways. For his first nine rounds at St Andrews, Rory McIlroy thought he had found the perfect partner in the Old Course, one who never gave him a moment's bother. The 10th was the day she picked an argument.

What a windbag she proved to be. By the end the pair were having a full-blown row of epic proportions. You remember that stat about McIlroy never having failed to break 70 in those nine rounds, played in an aggregate of 43-under-par? Yesterday the poor lad couldn't break 80, finishing on that mark after a round without a single birdie.

You know what 21-year-olds are like. As he traipsed off the 18th green he looked absolutely crushed. How could his supposed great love be so cruel as to treat him like this? 'I have never experienced anything like that before,' he said. It brought back memories of Colin Montgomerie shooting 64 in the second round of the 2002 Open and coming in like a love-struck teenager, only to follow it with an 84. The wind blew a hoolie that day, too.

What an afternoon this was at St Andrews, with the winds at venomous speeds after lunch. After all the compliments the Royal and Ancient fielded in the build-up, here was an occasion that set player against ruling body. In mid-afternoon, the gusts blew so hard that balls were moving on the greens and a 65-minute suspension in play - the first in 12 years at The Open - was called. Then came the fury. The R&A were damned by players before the suspension for not calling it earlier and damned by the ones who finished afterwards and could trace no discernible difference in the wind speed.

McIlroy, therefore, was just the most spectacular victim of the contrasting fortunes of links golf. On Thursday morning his half of the field had caught the break of their lives, playing in flat calm, and those who took advantage spent the afternoon sniggering over their good fortune. Here the unlucky half got their own back. True, yesterday morning - when they played - was no picnic, with heavy showers making life unpleasant. But every player would take heavy rain any day over the hoolie that blew in after lunch. With players not allowed to leave the course during the delay, it meant those like McIlroy and Tiger Woods spent over seven hours completing their rounds.

Not for nothing has Woods won 14 majors. Some players thrive when there are birdies to be had all over the course. But it is the greats of the game who thrive in tempestuous conditions such as these. Towards the finish it looked as if even Tiger, however, the most fearsome competitor of all, was spoiling a notable day's work by dropping shots. Others were dropping simply through exhaustion. At the end, however, there was one mighty moment for the decent smattering of people who stayed until 9.45pm to witness it, as he drove the 18th green to set up a two-putt birdie.

Poor McIlroy. Smacking gum furiously, he began in the same confident vein as the day before, registering three fine pars to begin. Then came the suspension; then came the unravelling. When play resumed, he just happened to be standing over an approach shot to the fourth, one of the most difficult holes, and he ended up with a bogey-five, his first dropped shot of the championship. At the fifth, a par five reachable in two, the Ulsterman failed to get the birdie on offer and then at the sixth, a pushed drive into some of the heaviest rough on the course led to another bogey.

At the seventh more trouble led to his fourth five in a row. At the short eighth, he had to hole from three feet to stop registering another five, but it was yet another bogey. When he missed a short birdie-putt at the ninth, it meant the man who played the back nine in 30 shots on Thursday had needed 40 to play the front nine a day later. On the agony went. 'I let it all get away from me,' he confessed.