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By Kent Gray
Some days even Rory McIlroy and his multi-million dollar game simply have to bow to the almighty golfing gods.

Seemingly flying after an opening 64, McIlroy returned a score 10 shots worse on Friday to slip from a solo second to a share of fifth with Belgian Thomas Pieters and South Africa’s Christiaan Bezuidenhout. Just one back after the opening round, now the world No.2 will have to come from six back over the weekend if he is to claim a fifth victory in 2019 and his third DP World Tour Championship title.

“Yeah, look, it’s a very fickle game,” McIlroy said, stating the obvious.

“I’ve always said that one day it can seem very easy and someone up there says, no, not so fast, and brings you back down to earth. That’s golf.”

While just about everything dropped Thursday, an eagle chip on the 14th and putt after putt on Friday burned the hole as McIlroy tried to make up for a double at the 6th when his tee shot on the par 3 ended up wet. There were further dropped shots on the 10th and 13th as the Northern Irishman struggled with his distance control and it could have been worse save for some superb scrambling, highlighted by a beautiful sand save on the par-3 17th.

There was also a par save on the closing par-5 after his tee shot again found water.

“Obviously just didn’t quite have it today. Obviously the wind was up a little bit. There was a lot of into-off-the-right winds, and I was trying to hold them up and losing them left a little bit.

“I’m just going to go do a little work on the range and try to figure that out. Sort of hung in there. The putts that went in yesterday sort of went over the edges today, and yeah, didn’t actually know the rough was as bad as it was. I was hitting it in the fairway most of the week. Hit it in the rough today and was a bit more difficult.”

McIlroy will begin his repair job in the company of Justin Rose in the fourth to last group on Saturday. He clearly believes the real Rory McIlroy will turn up too for the 12.15pm appointment.

“I’m still in with a shout to have a go at winning this tournament. Just need to stick the head down over the weekend and get in there and try to shoot a couple good scores.”