RORY McIlroy presumably invited Sepp Blatter to join his professional network on LinkedIn at some point in the past 24 hours.

After all, if anyone has ever done the world's No1 golfer a turn then it is the 79-year-old megalomaniac clinging to the top of the global football tree, whose organisation generously diverted the attention of the sport media from a round of golf that was spectacularly ill-timed.

While the FBI and Swiss authorities were shining a billion-watt spotlight on alleged corruption within world football's governing body, McIlroy was at Royal County Down playing in the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open, a competition hosted by his charity. His form has been hard to nail down, though. After a red-hot start to the season he missed the cut at Wentworth last week, which is often either the preface for a return to form after a weekend of bingeing on DVD box-sets and room service or the beginning of a slump. McIlroy's supporters - and they are many, on account of his likeable character and enviable ability - fervently hoped his performance at the PGA Championship would prove to be the former.

Then he strode out and had a shocker, posting nine bogeys without a single birdie for a first-round 80. Only two of his fellow competitors posted poorer scores. In the euphemistically neutral parlance of golf journalism, McIlroy was wayward off the tee, erratic with his irons and struggled with his putter. Not in the way Inspector Clouseau struggles with his man-servant Cato, one surmises, but rather in the manner Sepp Blatter struggles with reality. All this in the first few hours of a contest studded with star names lured by the reputation of easily the best golfer to emerge from these islands for a generation.

Despite posting a level-par 71 yesterday, the 26-year-old failed to make the cut at his "home" tournament for the third year running. You have to feel for the guy. It's like having your trousers yanked down by the minister as you wait for your bride-to-be at the altar.

It all goes to prove that golf can be unpredictable and mean to players of all abilities. It cares not for standing or form. It is as biddable as a scorpion, and equally deadly. One week you can play half-drunk and beat all comers; the next you might forswear the demon drink and fail to break 100. And while McIlroy's collapse is on an altogether higher plane, there won't be a club golfer alive who didn't wince in sympathy at hearing about it.

Chin up, Rory. It could be worse. You could be Sepp Blatter, the maddest man alive.