onte Vedre, FL …

Rory McIlroy will return to Belfast on Monday for an MRI on an injured back he fears could keep him out of next fortnight’s BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth.

The World No. 2 revealed he has been struggling with yet another niggling injury since last Sunday and this after superbly birding the last in second round of 71 to make the cut with an even par total at the Players Championship in Florida.

Despite revealing back concerns Rory McIlroy was in good spirits when he and Masters champion Sergio Garcia pass each other in being interviewed by SKY Sports TV. (Image . www.golfbytourmiss.com

“I’ve been struggling with it a bit this week, sort of felt it for the first time on Sunday”, he said.

“Then I’ve just sort of been managing it since.  It’s okay, it’s manageable, it’s not, obviously not a hundred percent, but it’s good enough to get myself around here for the next couple of days.

“So, I’m going for a MRI scan on Monday just to make sure it’s not serious and then I’ll see what we do from there”.

Despite being able to superbly hit all but one of one of 14 fairways on day two, McIlroy was clearly in some discomfort in taking pain-killers at times during the two rounds of the $US 1.5m event.

Then after his round he pointed to an area of his back where he has in placed adhesive protective tapping.

“I should be sponsored by Advil I’ve taken that many pills”, he joked.

McIlroy had commenced his new season in January but arrived in South African carrying an unknown injury and the result of heavy off season testing of new equipment and only to lose the South African Open in a play-0ff to Graeme Storm.

He then underwent an MRI in Dubai two days later that eventually saw him side-lined for some six weeks and missing four events on both the European and PGA Tour’s.

Now McIlroy fears he will miss the BMW PGA and where he reigned supreme in 2o14.

“It’s in the same area as what the injury was at the start of the year, and if that injury was an eight or a nine in terms of pain and soreness and stiffness, this is around a four or five”, he said

“So, it might just be a flare-up of what happened previously and I just need to rest for a few days and it might be okay.

“Hopefully that’s what it shows in the scan next week. But, yeah, there’s so many unknowns because we don’t even know, unless you get an image taken of it and you know exactly what’s going on you don’t know, so just making sure that the tissue around it is as loose as it possibly can be and at least the warm weather helps keep it not stiffened up.”

McIlroy, who indicated he had only hit some 25 balls in warming-up for his second round, found himself trailing behind clubhouse leading Canadian, David Hearn and Spain’s Rafa Cabrera-Bello at five under par.

And Masters champion, Sergio Garcia and with similar 73 and 71 rounds as McIlroy admitted the excitement surrounding his return to golf is distracting him from this week’s task at hand.

“I’m not going to lie, I would have loved to have played better than I did the first two days but it has been overwhelming, I’m not going to lie”, he said.

“I haven’t won a Major and I haven’t won the Masters before, so I didn’t know exactly what to expect and what to feel.

“To come back to this golf course that we know how challenging it is, it’s maybe not the best thing, but it is the way we planned it and we live with it.”

Sadly, former Masters winner Danny Willett succumb to a back injury and withdrew after nine holes of his second round and at 11-over par at the time.