Rich Beem noticed something ‘interesting’ about Rory McIlroy at the BMW Championship, ‘his mind was somewhere else’

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Rory McIlroy has been nowhere near his best during the first two rounds of the BMW Championship, and Rich Beem thinks he knows why that might have been the case.

In spite of his lacklustre performance at Caves Valley, McIlroy still posted rounds of 70 and 66, but he trails BMW Championship leader Robert MacIntyre by a whopping 10 strokes.

Rich Beem was paying close attention to the Northern Irishman’s round, and he spotted something highly unusual from the five-time major champion.

McIlroy said his game was ‘awful’ on Thursday at the BMW Championship and while he improved slightly on day two, he was still only at around a 6/10 at the very best.

And after his round on Friday, McIlroy suggested that he doesn’t believe he can catch MacIntyre during the final two rounds of the BMW Championship.

That just doesn’t sound like the McIlroy we all know and love, does it?

Beem shared his theory about McIlroy’s struggles in Baltimore this week, and it actually makes a lot of sense.

What Rich Beem noticed about Rory McIlroy at the BMW Championship

Beem is the on-course reporter for Sky Sports over in the United Kingdom.

Unsurprisingly, he was following the McIlroy and Scheffler group at Caves Valley on Friday afternoon.

It was put to Beem by one of his co-commentators that McIlroy didn’t look too happy out on the golf course on Friday.

“Yeah, it’s interesting, I kind of noticed a little bit of this yesterday too, he kind of seemed like he was, I don’t want to say going through the motions, but it seemed like his mind was somewhere else. He wasn’t fully engaged in what was going on, pretty lethargic to be fair.”

That is an interesting observation from Beem, and one that definitely makes sense.

McIlroy hasn’t been himself since the PGA Championship in May really, and it seems like he’s just waiting for the Ryder Cup to start now in order to breathe some fire back into his golf game.

Rory McIlroy stats during two rounds of the BMW Championship

McIlroy has clearly struggled with the mechanics of his game at Caves Valley.

And like Beem said, he doesn’t seem to have been into his rounds mentally either.

Here are his stats for the first two rounds of the BMW Championship:

It’s hard to actually be too critical of McIlroy because even without his best stuff at the BMW Championship, he has still managed to shoot four-under par for two rounds, on what is a very difficult golf course.

However, those are the standards which the Masters champion has set for himself, after playing such extraordinary levels of golf for the best part of 15 years now.

The challenge for McIlroy now will be to shoot a round in the low-60s on Saturday as he attempts to close the gap on MacIntyre and Scottie Scheffler.