KEY POINTS:
A pair of closing hole birdies was of little comfort to Michael Campbell who easily missed the cut in the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth near London.
Campbell carded rounds of 78 and 75 for a disappointing nine-over par tally on the famed West Course, the Surrey County where he last tasted success in the 2005 HSBC World Match-Play Championship.
It is also the third event in succession Campbell has missed a halfway cut after he carded rounds of 75 and 79 in the Players Championship in Florida whilst he sat out the weekend rounds of the Irish Open after scores of 77 and 76.
Campbell's second round in the flagship European Tour event seemed off to a bright note when he birdied fourth and fifth holes to get his score back to six over par.
But it came horribly unstuck when he bogeyed the eighth and then recorded a bizarre quadruple bogey eight at the par four ninth hole. Campbell's second shot flew the green and landed in bushes from where Campbell tried to play a one handed shot backwards and standing with his back to the hole.
But the ball struck his foot and thus incurring a two-stroke penalty.
He dropped a further shot at the 13th but managed to birdie the 14th ahead of three-putting the 16 th for a double bogey before ending with birdie fours at the closing pair of par fives.
"It is just ridiculous my game at the moment and I just don't know what is going on," said Campbell.
"I just don't believe my scores are any reflection of how well I am playing and it is just one of those things where I have to be patient with it and hopefully I will soon get to see some light at the end of the tunnel.
"I am just not getting any breaks at the moment because if your game is on song, you are holing putts from 30, 40 or 50 feet but if you're struggling you find yourself missing putts from two, three or four feet.
"Then you take what happened at the ninth when I hit my foot playing out of the trees. I've never done that before ever playing this game so that's another example of what is going on at present, and it's not a true reflection of my overall game."
For a second day running Campbell competed in the company of England's Justin Rose and Sweden's Robert Karlsson.
Rose birdied his closing three holes in round of 70 to seize the lunchtime clubhouse lead on eight under par and spoke on day of the disappointment in witnessing Campbell struggle.
Karlsson, a member of last year's European winning Ryder Cup team, was just as disappointed on day two seeing Campbell further collapse.
"I noticed earlier this week when I was drawn to play with Michael that he is now ranked 66th on the world rankings and that surprised me to see him so low," said the Swede.
"Michael is a fantastic player and we've all seen what he's accomplished in this game but I don't know if he is working on anything in his game at present that he is causing him to struggle.
"But it's never fun to see a fellow competitor struggle and it was difficult for him from the outset yesterday with one bad tee shot that forced him to take a penalty drop at the first hole.
"It just reflects the fickle nature of this game and we've all gone through it but it can't be easy for him coping with this at the moment because he went through such a high two years ago, as we all know but there's more expectations on his shoulders no w to do well each and every week.
"All I can say to him is to try and keep his head up and fight his way through this spell and hopefully the trough won't be so deep," Karlsson said.
Campbell left the course and returned home to his Brighton residence before heading to Wales on Tuesday for Thursday's starting Wales Open.
- NZPA
