Former double Hero World Challenge champ Graeme McDowell paid a prize in rushing to complete his second round on a rain interrupted second day’s play on the Isleworth course in Windermere, Florida.

With darkness falling, and not wishing to have to return to the course on Saturday morning, McDowell and playing partner Henrik Stenson rushed from the 17th green to the nearby 18th tee hoping to tee-up before PGA Tour official Mark Williams sounded the horn to halt play.

Play had been halted for 82 minutes just prior to 3pm local time when heavy rain saturated the exclusive course.

McDowell was on the 12th green and at level par for the day and remaining at four under for the $US 3.5m event, and having holed a 17-foot birdie putt on the 10th hole.

Graeme McDowell on route to a one over par 73 on day two of the Hero World Challenge. (Photo – Fran Caffrey/www.golffile.ie)

He returned to the course and pared the 12th along with posting pars at the next five holes.

There was the scenario of hearing a siren when McDowell and Stenson were heading down the 17th but that turned out to be a siren coming from a boat on the large body of water to the right of the fairway.

But then in rushing his drive down the last McDowell found a fairway bunker but by the time the Northern Irishman got to his ball the green was hardly visible and with McDowell’s drive having plugged under the under the lip of bunker. He played his third that remained in the bunker before finding the green and two putting for a bogey in a round of 73 to drop back to three under par.

It left him trailing six shots behind Stenson and eight strokes behind newly-crowned Australian Open champion Jordan Spieth who elected to mark his ball just short of the final green and resume his round at 10.15am local time Saturday.

McDowell left the scorer’s hut located in the basement of the Isleworth clubhouse and into a small elevator taking him to the locker room.

Not surprising McDowell was unhappy to drop a shot at the last but later remarked:  “I have struggled with the speed of my putts on the greens the last two days and I am not stroking the ball well.

“Genuinely, my game is in good shape.”

And regards to his tee shot at 18 he confessed:  “Yes, we rushed onto the tee box at 18 and bunkers out there are perfect but to find my ball under the lip was not what I was expecting.

“But then to get a 5-iron onto the green in the darkness and ……”

At that point McDowell bumps into Keegan Bradley and the two begin chatting.