Rory McIlroy had a rough end to his first round in his return to Ireland, bogeying two of the last three holes at the Amgen Irish Open following a slow play warning that he said later was due to massive crowds following the Masters champion.
McIlroy shot 1-under-par 71 at the K Club outside of Dublin to stand five shots behind first-round leader Nacho Elvira at the DP World Tour event.
But McIlroy told reporters afterward that he managed to avoid “losing my s---” with rules officials but was upset that the warnings were due to the amount of media, camera crews and crowds that followed him as well as Thriston Lawrence and Kristoffer Reitan.
“I got frustrated the last few holes because I felt a bit rushed,” McIlroy said. “We got put on the clock pretty early and then the first official went away and then we were put on the clock for the last three holes by another one.
“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. They should give us a little bit of leeway.”
McIlroy’s lone Irish Open victory came at the same venue—also the site of the 2006 Ryder Cup—in 2016.
Reports had a large first-day gallery of some 20,000, most of them following McIlroy, who is from Northern Ireland.
“It’s happened to me quite a lot before in these sort of big groups when I come back to Europe and play and I just let it agitate me,” he said. “Any time I either come back to this tour or I play in some of those [world No.] 1, 2, 3 groups, we are always put on the clock for the same reason. It happened at the Players [in March] and I lost my s--- with an official.”
McIlroy went on to win that tournament in a playoff over J.J. Spaun after earlier winning the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. His victory at the Masters completed the career Grand Slam.
The five-time major winner is also playing in the next week’s BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth prior to the Ryder Cup later this month.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Rory McIlroy Frustrated With Slow Play Warning at Irish Open.