VIRGINIA WATER, England – Defending champion Rory McIlroy shot a 1-under 71 on Thursday, leaving him six shots behind leader Francesco Molinari at the BMW PGA Championship after a mixed performance he blamed on mental fatigue.

Playing for the fourth straight week, the top-ranked McIlroy failed to recapture the form that saw him surge to a record seven-shot victory at the Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow last week.

McIlroy had two birdies and two bogeys in his first five holes, missing a 12-foot putt for par at the first hole after failing to find the green with his approach. He went birdie-bogey-birdie from Nos. 12-14, and could not take advantage of par-5s on the final two holes.

“Physically I feel fine but mentally I could feel myself getting down on myself out there, which is not something I have been doing the last three weeks,” McIlroy said.

“I just need to be aware of that and keep everything on an even keel. It is acceptance of bad shots. Every time I have played well this year, I have been talking about how mentally good I have been. I feel like my patience was wearing thin out there today.”

Molinari carded a flawless 65, closing his round with two straight birdies on the last two holes.

The Italian has three top-10 finishes in the last three years at the European Tour’s flagship event and came second at the Spanish Open last week.

“It is a great start but you don’t win the trophy on the first day,” Molinari said. “I like the course, I think it rewards accuracy more than others, which suits my game.”

Robert Karlsson is two shots behind Molinari. The Swede went round in 67, making two of his six birdies across the last three holes.

“It was nice to put a good round together,” Karlsson said. “I was careful off the tee, it is important round here to keep the ball in play. Hopefully this is the start of a good run.”

Justin Rose also began his tournament with a 1-under 71, and two-time winner Luke Donald made a 2-under 70.

Stephen Gallacher and Padraig Harrington were both forced to withdraw from the competition through injury.

Gallacher, who was part of Europe’s 2014 Ryder Cup winning team, has a wrist injury while Harrington, who won the Honda Classic in March, has a shoulder problem.

BELEK, Turkey – England’s Melissa Reid won the Turkish Airlines Ladies Open on Wednesday, leading wire-to-wire for her fifth career Ladies European Tour victory.

The 27-year-old Reid closed with an even-par 73 at Carya Golf Club for a four-stroke victory over France’s Gwladys Nocera. Reid also won the 2010 tournament at National Golf Club.

Nocera finished with a 71 in the unique Sunday-Wednesday event.

England’s Laura Davies tied for third at 6 under with Scots Kylie Walkerand Sally Watson. The 51-year Davies finished with a 72. Walker also shot 72, and Watson had a 75.

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. – Minjee Lee shook off a three-putt bogey on her first hole with two finishing pars and won the Kingsmill Championship by two shots Monday, her first victory on the LPGA Tour.

Lee, an 18-year-old Australian, finished at 15-under 269. She surged into the lead on Sunday with a round highlighted by a five-hole stretch that she played in 5 under and returned to the Kingsmill Resort’s River Course on Monday morning with a four-stroke lead.

She three-putted her first hole, the 16th, but rallied with a pair of pars.

So Yeon Ryu started her day with three consecutive birdies and finished second, with Alison Lee another shot back.

Third-round leader Perrine Delacour of France finished fourth after a closing 71.

Canada’s Brooke Henderson tied for 25th at 3 under par.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Rory McIlroy was more methodical than electrifying Sunday.

It was still effective.

Always in control, the top-ranked McIlroy became the first two-time winner in the Wells Fargo Championship with a seven-shot victory over Webb Simpson and Patrick Rodgers.

McIlory closed with a 3-under 69 to finish at 21-under 267, shattering the tournament record by five strokes. He entered the day with a four-stroke lead over Simpson after a course-record 61 on Saturday.

“Everything is firing on all cylinders for me,” McIlroy said.

McIlroy also won Match Play Championship two weeks ago in San Francisco and has 11 PGA Tour titles. He has six top-10 finishes in his last eight PGA Tour starts.

McIlroy won at Quail Hollow in in 2010 for his first PGA Tour title, shooting 15 under. Anthony Kim set the previous tournament record of 16 under in 2008.

“The golf course just sets up really well for me,” McIlroy said.

Phil Mickelson called McIlroy’s performance this week “impressive.”

McIlroy had another word to describe his play on the back nine.

“Boring,” he said with a laugh.

Unlike his win in 2010, McIlroy didn’t finish in a flurry by carding 3s on the last six holes. On Sunday he played the last half-dozen holes in 1-under.

Then again, he didn’t really need to shoot lights out with nobody chasing him.

“It was a more controlled run,” McIlroy said. “I feel like I’m a more controlled player these days. I’ve learned how to finish things off.”

Rodgers, playing on a sponsor exemption, was the only player to mount any type of a challenge, getting within three shots after a birdie at No. 15. But there was too much ground to make up, and he played the final two holes in 3-over and finished with a 68. Simpson shot a 72.

McIlroy almost didn’t play at Quail Hollow this week, but decided he needed to play more because he needed the FedEx Cup points after the Masters.

The win moved him into third place in the standings.

McIlroy got off to a shaky start with a three-putt bogey on No. 2 – his first in 167 holes – but quickly pulled it together. He didn’t have another bogey until the 17th hole, when he had built a seven-stroke lead and outcome was already decided.

Simpson failed to capitalize on McIlroy’s early mistake, shooting 37 on the front nine that included a double bogey on the par-3 sixth when he three-putted from 8 feet. That dropped the Charlotte resident six shots back and he was never in contention again.

“He’s our best player right now and I wish more than anything I could have shot a couple under on the front to make it more exciting,” Simpson said. “Just didn’t have it today.”

McIlroy reached 20 under on No. 12 when he knocked his approach shot from 132 yards to 2 feet of the cup for a tap-in birdie and it looked as if he might coast the rest of the way.

But Rodgers, who earned his first top-25 finish on the PGA Tour, made it interesting when he played a seven-hole stretch in 6-under par, sparked by an eagle on the par-5 10th hole. But McIlroy didn’t flinch when Rodgers drained a 15-foot putt on No. 15 to pull within three shots of the lead.

Instead, McIlroy countered by rolling in a birdie putt on his own on No. 14, moving to 21 under and regaining a four-shot cushion.

McIlroy then put an exclamation point on the win by drilling his approach shot from 145 yards to 3 feet on No. 16 for his tournament-record 27th birdie.

“I had a goal to go out there and birdie the par 5s and the two drivable par 4s and I knew if I made six birdies there was pretty much no chance that anybody could catch me,” McIlroy said. “With my length and the way I’m driving it, it’s a big advantage around here and it showed this week.”

It also helped having a big lead.

“You can pick and choose where you want to be aggressive,” McIlroy said.

Rodgers ran out of gas on No. 17 when he dunked his tee shot in the water and took a double bogey to fall seven shots back. Still, it was a solid finish for Rodgers, who earned an automatic berth in The Colonial next week by virtue of his top-10 finish.

“It has given me a lot of confidence moving forward,” Rodgers said.

Mickelson finished in a three-way tie for fourth place at 12 under with Gary Woodland and Robert Streb.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Jeff Maggert didn’t let the missed putts haunt him when he faced the most pressurized one of the day.

Maggert won the Regions Tradition on Sunday for his first Champions Tour major title, beating Kevin Sutherland with a 3-foot par putt on the first hole of a playoff. He missed from a similar distance on No. 17 and failed to hole other modest putts over the final nine holes in a day-long, back-and-forth Shoal Creek scramble.

“No one likes to miss 3-footers,” Maggert said. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a 20-handicapper or a golf pro. When you miss a few of them, you start to second-guess yourself. On 18, I said, `Hey, you missed it, no big deal, on 17. Let’s just go to your routine and your game plan and try to put a good stroke on it.’

“I was nervous, shaking a little bit.”

It didn’t show in his stroke on the straight-on putt.

Sutherland two-putted for bogey to set up Maggert for the winning shot on the 18th hole.

Maggert closed with an even-par 72 to match Sutherland at 14-under 274. Sutherland had a 71.

Maggert’s only previous Champions Tour win came in Mississippi last year in his first start on the 50-and-over tour. He won three times on the PGA Tour, the last in the 2006 St. Jude Classic.

Sutherland had his second runner-up finish of the year and remains stuck at one career win in 544 tournaments spread across the PGA, Champions and Web.com tours.

Maggert won $345,000 and moved into the points lead after the first of five majors.

Sutherland’s tee shot on the playoff hole dropped into the left bunker a few feet from the lip and about 130 yards from the green. His next shot landed near fans lining the fairway and he was left needing a long putt to make par.

Sutherland said a nearly day-long struggle with his driver “reared its ugly head at the last moment and got underneath the lip of the bunker and didn’t have much of a play really. Couldn’t get it to the green.”

He said jitters weren’t a problem, though.

“I was as relaxed as you could possibly be,” Sutherland said. “I was much more relaxed on the 19th hole than I was on the first hole.”

Jeff Hart and Gene Sauers both shot 69 to tie for third at 11 under, three shots back. Michael Allen (68), Bernhard Langer (70), two-time winner Tom Lehman (69) and defending champion Kenny Perry (70) were 9 under.

Both players parred the 18th hole the first time to force the playoff. Maggert needed to make a three-footer to stay alive, similar to the one he missed on the previous hole.

“Second time’s the charm,” Maggert said, adding that the shot on 17 “was a putt that I was expecting to walk up and tap it in.”

It was a change-up after Maggert had birdied the final two holes each of the previous two days.

Maggert’s the first 36-hole leader to hold on for the win at the tournament since Tom Watson in 2003.

Maggert and Sutherland traded birdies on No. 15 to remain deadlocked after jockeying for position the past two days and then set up similar tap-ins on 16.

Sutherland had reclaimed the edge with an eagle on the par-5 third hole, while Maggert bogeyed for a three-stroke turnaround. He regrouped with a birdie on No. 6 while Sutherland had three bogeys on the first nine holes for a 1-over 32.

Maggert had three-putted from five feet on No. 12, saying he had trouble gauging the speed of the greens after overnight rains.

Hart, meanwhile, managed his first top-three finish on the Champions Tour, having finished no better than 29th in his three previous events this season.

He extended his string without a bogey to 54 holes and finished with a birdie. Hart’s two bogeys was the fewest in a Tradition.

“At that point, I didn’t care where I finished,” Hart said. “But I didn’t want to blow the non-bogey string on the final hole.”

Sauers ended with back-to-back birdies. He has finished in the top three over the last two majors he’s played, losing a playoff to Colin Montgomerie in last year’s U.S. Senior Open.

GREER, S.C. – Australia’s Rod Pampling won the Web.com Tour’s BMW Charity Pro-Am on Sunday, finishing with a 5-under 66 for a 25-under 261 total.

The 45-year-old Pampling opened with consecutive 9-under 63s at The Reserve at Lake Keowee and Green Valley Country Club and shot a 69 on Saturday at Thornblade Club – also the site of the final round.

Pampling earned $121,500 for his first career victory on the tour. The two-time PGA Tour winner was two strokes off the tournament record of 27-under 259 set by Mark Anderson in 2013.

Kelly Kraft was two strokes back after a 66.

ASHEVILLE, N.C. – South Korea’s Jimin Kang won the Mission Health Wellness Classic on Sunday for her fourth career Symetra Tour title and first since 2004.

The victory capped a comeback from an allergy problem two years ago that attacked her immune system and made it difficult to breathe and walk on her own.

“I am speechless. That is how amazing this is,” said the 35-year-old Kang, who cried during her emotional victory speech. “I never thought I’d win again. That is why I am so overwhelmed. I can’t believe my name is at the top of the leaderboard.”

A two-time winner on the LPGA Tour, Kang shot 5-under 67 in all three rounds for a five-stroke victory at the Country Club of Asheville. The 11-year span between victories is the longest in tour history.

The former Arizona State player broke the tournament record at 15-under 206 and earned $15,000 to jump from 10th to second on the money list with $32,932.

“This win just lets me know that I can really do this again and God gave me the talent and the health to do this,” Kang said. “This is just awesome.”

Kang is committed to the Symetra Tour in a bid to regain full LPGA Tour status. The final top 10 on the money list will earn 2016 LPGA Tour cards.

“This week, I withdrew from the LPGA event to come here and play,” Kang said. “I think this is a tour that can help me get (to the LPGA) and get stronger.”

Kang had only one bogey in the event, on her 14th hole in the first round.

Lacey Agnew, Brianna Do, Daniela Iacobelli and Brittany Benvenuto tied for second. Agnew closed with a 67, Do shot 68, Iacobelli 69, and Benvenuto 70.

The top Canadians were Samantha Richdale (70) and Muade Aimee LeBlanc. The pair tied for 8th at 8-under.

GAINESVILLE, Ga. – Surrey, B.C. native Adam Svensson captured SwingThought Tour’s Martin Honda Classic on Sunday, marking his third professional victory in just four starts.

The 21-year-old Team Canada member finished at 22-under par through four rounds at the Chattahoochee Golf Club, good enough for a five-stroke margin over runner-up Brent Witcher.

Svensson, who turned professional earlier this year in March, opened with a 6-under 66 and held the lead all the way to earn the wire-to-wire victory.

In total, the 2014 Jack Nicklaus Award winner carded four eagles and 19 birdies en route to the win. Svensson will take home $20,000 (USD) for his efforts, totalling $60,000 so far this season on the SwingThought Tour alone.

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