McIlroy tailed off badly at The K Club with two bogeys in his final three holes to fall well off the pace
Rory McIlroy said he felt frustrated after being put on the clock for slow play for the final three holes of his opening round at the 2025 Amgen Irish Open.
The reigning Masters champion and golf’s newest Grand Slam winner was going along nicely on the first day of the tournament at the K Club as he was 3-under par with those three holes to play.
However he then felt rushed as his group, which also included Triston Lawrence and Kristoffer Reitan, was put on the clock for the second time in their round.
And the 36-year-old paid the price, dropping shots on seven and eight – the 16th and 17th holes of his round – to fall to 1-under par and out of the top 20 on the leaderboard.
“In all honesty, I felt a little rushed out there for the last 12 holes. We got put on the clock pretty early,” he said. “And then the first official went away and then we were put on the clock for the last three holes to try to make time up.
“And it’s hard because you feel a bit rushed, you’re playing some tough holes and we obviously, our group, have to deal with a lot more than any other group on the course. So it’s understandable that we lose time.”
McIlroy feels that, as the highest ranked player in the field and as someone who is usually in the marquee TV group, some leeway should be shown by Tour officials.
“I feel like any time I either come back to Europe or I play in some of these like one, two, three in the world type groups, we’re always put on the clock for that reason,” he said.
“So I got a little frustrated the last few holes because I feel like it always happens and I don’t think they use sort of common sense in terms of, well, of course we’re going to lose ground because we’re going to have to wait on crowds and wait on the two camera crews that are out there.
“And, you know, there’s just a lot more going on with our group than any of the other groups on the course, and sometimes I feel like they have to give us a little bit of leeway and use a bit of common sense.”
The irony of it is that McIlroy is known as a quick player and he clearly feels he is being unduly targeted, admitting that he “lost my s***” with a PGA Tour official during the Players Championship earlier this year.
On the 7th hole today, for example, both Lawrence – who won the Omega Swiss Open last week – and Reitan found water.
McIlroy recalled: “Yeah, and then obviously they’re taking their time, whatever, and I was in my mind like, ‘oh, do I just go first to try to save a bit of time here?’
“But not really, you can still wait your turn. So it wasn’t really that, I guess it was more I just felt because it’s happened to me quite a lot before in these sort of big groups who want to come back to Europe and play, I felt like I just let it agitate me a little bit.”
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