Rory McIlroy lost the club head on his 9-iron and then lost a chance to take the first-round lead by going out of bounds on the last hole in an eventful 5-under 67 at the BMW PGA Championship on Thursday.

The No. 3-ranked McIlroy was two strokes off the lead held by No. 363-ranked Matthew Baldwin in the flagship event on the European tour, having bounced back well from the pain of being denied victory at his home Irish Open last week.

McIlroy had already produced a rare back-handed putt next to a water hazard to help salvage a par at No. 8 by the time he overcame a bizarre incident on the par-5 No. 12, which saw the head of his 9-iron detach from the shaft and fly down the fairway after McIlroy took his second shot.

The Northern Irishman said he didn’t even see the ball reach the green and settle inside 7 feet from the pin to set up one of his seven birdies.

“It was a bit of a weird feeling,” McIlroy said. “Obviously you’re expecting the weight of the club to just pull through and there was nothing there.”

McIlroy got the 9-iron fixed and had it back in the bag by the 16th hole, ahead of two par 5s that complete the West Course at Wentworth. He made par at No. 17 despite hooking his drive into the trees but dropped a shot at the last when he hit his second shot to the right of the green and into the trees, the ball eventually reaching a pathway that was OB.

A bogey dropped McIlroy out of a share of the lead at the time with Denmark’s Niklas Norgaard (66), who won the British Masters this month for his first European tour title.

Baldwin was among the afternoon starters and went one better than Norgaard, with a tap-in birdie at No. 18 completing a bogey-free 65.

Buhai leads, Korda no sign of fatigue

Nelly Korda had a tough time getting out of bed Thursday morning. Any Solheim Cup fatigue had no bearing on her standard of golf, a bogey-free 67 in the Kroger Queen City Championship that left her two shots behind Ashleigh Buhai.

Korda and Leona Maguire, who also had a 5-under 67, are among 11 players who competed in the Solheim Cup last week and got right back to work at the TPC River’s Bend.

Buhai, a former Women’s British Open champion from South Africa, isn’t part of the Solheim Cup and had a few weeks to rest from an injury-plagued season. She ran off eight birdies for her 7-under 65, giving her a one-shot lead over Jeeno Thitikul and Yan Liu.

“Just shows that rest is just as important,” Buhai said. “I know if I give myself five days to warm up, with my coach coming in, we did good work, and, yeah, it was nice to actually just see it pay off today.”

Korda at least had the afternoon for nap time after her early start. She went 3-1 in her matches last week in the Solheim Cup as the Americans defeated Europe for the first time in seven years.

“I’m looking forward to the stay-in-bed-all-day vibe today. It was definitely tough kind of waking up this morning, but I do love competing and I love being out here,” Korda said. “Everyone that played last week is going to be tired. I’m just trying to take it one step at a time, know that my energy levels aren’t the greatest, but I’m still motivated.”