DAVID Howell says that his confidence has not been knocked despite missing the cut at the BMW PGA Championship.

On a second day of mixed fortunes for the Broome Manor pro today, Howell was able to score a one-under-par 71 to leave him on three over for the tournament.

Howell missed the weekend at Wentworth for a fourth consecutive year.

But, having been in fine form this year with two second-placed finishes leading into the tournament, the two-time Ryder Cup star was not disappointed with his two days of golf.

“It’s an amazing game really. Sometimes you just don’t get the run of things and nothing seemed to go right for me this week at all,” said Howell, who won the championship in 2006.

“I couldn’t seem to save a shot when I needed to and didn’t really hole any putts at all for me and missed a couple of short ones.

“I drove the ball beautifully, so to drive the ball that well and miss the cut is unusual but it still bodes well for the weeks coming up.

“Fairly early on, I was battling and kept trying but I was never going to get too stressed about missing the cut.

“I have been on a good run and sometimes golf doesn’t go your way.”

Howell, who knew he needed to shoot an under par round to stand any chance of being at Wentworth over the weekend, got off to a disastrous start as two approach shots left him short on both the first and second holes and he dropped shots on both to fall back to six-over-par.

Despite finding the bunker with his drive on three, he was able to recover for par before another nice shot out of the bunker set him up for a birdie on four.

Howell never looked happy with his putt for par on the sixth and he proceeded to miss to fall back further before his putting let him down again on seven, leaving him three over for the day and seven over for the tournament.

Howell joked with the crowd that he would be watching the weekend’s play on television after walking off the green with a par on eight, a comment which seemed to spark a mini-comeback.

A birdie on nine lifted his spirits and despite hitting a spectator with his tee shot on the par-three 10th, who Howell apologised to by giving her a signed glove, he was still able to secure another par with a sublime chip.

Howell was able to pull another shot back on the par-five 12th but with holes beginning to run out, a succession of five pars, despite being in good birdie chances on many of them, proved decisive.

The 39-year-old was able to add some gloss to his round though as a perfect approach shot on the 18th led to an eagle to leave him one under par for the day, but it proved too little too late.