If you followed Rory McIlroy’s form earlier in the week at the BMW PGA Championship of the DP World Tour, you wouldn’t be surprised to see him birdie five of his first nine holes at Wentworth on Thursday en route to an opening three-under 69. Indeed, you might expect him to go lower, given on Wednesday and he made an official record of 10. course record on the revered Harry Colt design. (Alas, pro-am scores don’t count in the record books).
Sandwiched between McIlroy’s run of birdies in the first round was an oddity: a sentence that left Sky Sports broadcasters scrambling for a local copy. rules in play for the week. The head scratching began after McIlroy hit his tee shot on the par-3 14th well left of the green. The ball settled on a narrow strip of grass between a fence and a driveway, leaving McIlroy with an intimidating, seemingly unplayable lie.
Unless…
“I think he’ll get some relief from that blue lining, Sam,” said commentator Tony Johnstone on the broadcast, speaking to his cabin mate, Sam Torrance. “I think there’s an out-of-bounds fence right behind it, so I think you’ll probably get some relief.”
“I thought we were using the blue accompaniment as off limits?” Torrance said.
“Oh, really?” said Johnstone. “I might have gotten that wrong when we had our rules meeting yesterday.”
Here, the announcer Alison Whitaker intervened, reading verbatim from the local rules, which say that the players no get free fencing relief on 14, including base supports and supports.
“So this is going to be interesting,” he said. “That’s going to set the precedent for us this week.”
At this point, the commentators’ conversation turned to whether McIlroy could get relief from another source: the fairway. His ball was pinned in such a position that McIlroy did not swing from the right side, but he recognized that if he went to the other side of the ball and swung left-handed, could take a backswing – and, from that position, the path will hinder his posture.
By this time, a rules officer was on the scene. As he watched McIlroy take practice swings from the left side, with McIlroy’s right foot touching the fairway, the official said, “Yeah, I see that as a reasonable shot. Yeah, that’s good.”
That the official deemed the shot “reasonable” is key, because this determination meant that McIlroy could take free relief. Even better for McIlroy, because the fence prevented him from leaving on the far side (or side of the fence) of the path, he was allowed to cross the path and leave on the greenside, even if it is no closer to the hole.
Here’s how the DP World Tour explained the decision to GOLF in an email:
To the left of the 14th hole there is an immovable obstacle, namely the carriageway. Since the stretch of grass near the boundary fence is very narrow, the grass has been tied in the path and is part of the immovable obstruction. If a player has a shot and can play the ball, he has the right to relief, even if he is on the grass strip. Therefore, in this situation, the player left the ball at his nearest point of relief because he could play the ball.
McIlroy took his drop, played a nifty chip to about five feet and drilled the ensuing putt for a par that, in the moments after his tee shot, seemed an unlikely outcome. If McIlroy wins by a shot this week at Wentworth, his first-round par at 14 – aided by smart application of the rules – will be a moment worth revisiting.
McIlroy finished the day at three under. Through 18 holes, he is three behind the co-leader Aaron Rai and the Swedish Joakim Lagergren.
“I said last week in Ireland, I’m seeing encouraging signs in my game,” McIlroy said after his round. “It’s just a matter of sticking with it, sticking with some of the sensations I have in my swing, and hopefully, over time, it will feel more natural and I can just get into the flow of visualizing shots and hitting and being more instinctive on the course.”
On the 14th, however, those instincts were spot on.