By the time Rory McIlroywho has played golf for nearly all of his 37 years and for nearly two decades professionally, came off the course after his first round at the Irish Open On Thursday, he said something alarming:
“I can’t remember a round of golf that took that long before. We’ve had some rounds that are five-thirty or five-thirty, but six hours is the first for me.”
McIlroy was not being hyperbolic. He and his fellow players, Robert MacIntyre and Brooks Koepkathey had started their lap in Doonbeg, on the southwest coast of Ireland, at 1:35 pm local time. The final putt of his group fell at 7:41, meaning his round took a cool 6 hours and 6 minutes, or about the same time it takes to fly from New York to Dublin.
The reasons were many: a start from a tee for the field of 138 players; wet and windy conditions that made an already difficult test a bogey breathing beast; and a decision by Erik van Rooyen 20 minutes early in the proceedings that brought the slog to a halt. “When you play a round of golf and it takes six hours, it’s hard to get into the rhythm of things,” McIlroy said. Scot Ewen Ferguson, speaking on Friday, was less diplomatic. “I made a few mistakes yesterday, just kind of being caught up and wanting to do it, to be honest, and also, like, a lapse in concentration,” he said. “Golf shouldn’t take so long.”
For McIlroy, who this week defends his stirling Irish Open victory from a year agohis literal and figurative (one under 69) slow start left him chasing leader Joaquin Niemann (65). Earlier in the week, McIlroy had spoken about how much last year’s victory at the K Club, near Dublin, had meant not only to him, but also to the Irish people. “The scenes of the celebrations and the fathers and sons hugging, it was very complete,” he said. On Thursday, however, the 18-year-old’s scene looked nothing close to that: McIlroy’s group was greeted by near-empty stands under fading light.
However, McIlroy was only four back, and Friday’s forecast promised – and delivered – fairer conditions. McIlroy left early, at 9:30 a.m. He avoided any real trouble, like the double bogey he made on the par-4 14th hole Thursday, but he never got going, at least not in a meaningful way. A birdie at 2 was negated by a bogey at 7, and an eagle kick-in at the par-5 8th was canceled out by two back-nine bogeys, at 11 and 18. Another birdie, at 17, led to another 69.
“Frustration,” is how McIlroy described his primary emotion at the end of the round. “I didn’t just do it on the greens. I really struggled to read. It’s difficult whenever you struggle to read, and then when you get over the ball, you try to trust what you see, but everything you saw didn’t go as you thought, so it’s difficult to put a committed stroke.”
Welcome to Doonbeg, where original designer Greg Norman has put enough fairways into the greens to scare Tony Hawk. Martin Hawtree tamed the surfaces in a 2014 rerun, but clearly some challenge remains. On Friday, McIlroy missed eight putts to 12 feet.
“It’s a reading problem,” he said when pressed. “I started on my lines, so it’s not really a problem. I feel that I’m quite good at it. It’s just getting the correct reading and then trusting in it I think it is – like the putt that I hit on the 17. The only reason I hit is because I saw what Brooks did before me, it was on the same exact line. So if someone can put me that well, then someone could see me better.”
At two under, McIlroy is now looking for a new leader, his old friend Shane Lowrywho was so in command of his game on Friday that earlier in the new year he had visions of shooting 59. Instead, Lowry had to settle for a ho-hum eight-under 62 that moved him to 11 under.
It will take a powerful force for McIlroy to catch his partner, but he hopes that a worse weather, which is expected for Saturday, will give him an advantage because the hard conditions, he said, put a premium on the ball, a category in which McIlroy had no problems this week.
“If I can do that and see just a couple (putts) go in,” he said, “then hopefully it’s a different story.”
Maybe with another fairy tale ending.
