Do you believe in fate, or the golfing gods? In all of his 16 seasons on tour, Rory McIlroy – with the Harry Vardon Trophy for the order of merit already wrapped up – couldn’t have experienced the sort of luck that came his way on the closing hole of the opening round of the season-ending DP World Tour Championship on The Earth course in Dubai.
The 18th hole is a risk-reward par five of 651 yards with a creek dividing the fairway in two and, for good measure, the wind whipped up so that McIlroy and Jon Rahm – in the final pairing – were playing directly into it. But McIlroy’s tee-shot veered right, apparently destined for a watery grave until it ricocheted off rocks and was propelled skywards before dropping back down to dry land albeit finishing up on the mulch spread around the trees.
If that was a stroke of luck, what followed beggared belief. Truly. His lay-up with an iron turned left destined for the same creek, only for the ball to land on an island cluster of rocks and jump up on to a bridge and roll back towards the fairway.
McIlroy then found the green with his third, rolled his putt to two feet and tapped in for as adventurous a par as he had experienced. It completed an opening round of one-under-par 71 that left him just four shots adrift of a trio that featured Frenchmen Julien Gurrier and Matthieu Pavon and Denmark’s Nicolai Højgaard.
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“I felt a little bit rusty,” admitted McIlroy, playing for the first time since the Ryder Cup in Rome in September. “On the back nine, I was scrambling pretty much the whole way. Overall, only four back. It was a tricky day, the wind was up in the morning, settled down a little bit on our front nine and then got up again for our back nine. I can certainly do better, I know that, but it was nice to get one round out of the way and hopefully something to build on.”
McIlroy’s round was up and down, with five birdies and four bogeys, and included a rather freakish free drop when his tee shot on the 13th hole came to rest in the lap of a female spectator who was sitting on the grass. However, it was the back-to-back par saves on 17 – where he got up-and-down from a greenside bunker after an exquisite recovery shot – and the drama on 18 that meant as much as any of the birdies.
Of his play on the 18th, McIlroy explained: “I was hoping that my tee shot was going to miss the hazard right but I didn’t exactly think it would do what it did. And then the second shot from the mulch, it just started left on me and I got another stroke of luck by coming back over the bridge.
“I was a bit in two minds about whether to try and go left and cut it or go right. I felt with the longer club, by cutting it there was a chance of clipping the bridge on the way through. So I took a wedge and tried to hit it as hard as I could and ended up making a good shot. The up and down on 17 and the par on 18 was actually a pretty nice way to end the day.”
McIlroy also spoke to Sky Sports post-round about his reasoning for resigning from the PGA Tour’s policy board: “I have got a lot going on in my life between my golf game, my family, my growing investment portfolio, involved with TGL, I just felt like something had to give. I just didn’t feel like I could commit the time or the energy into doing that.
“I don’t mind being busy but I just like being busy doing my own stuff, so something had to give. There’s guys on that board who are spending a lot more time and energy on it than I am and it is in good hands and I felt like it was the right time to step off.”
With that decision made, McIlroy can focus on his golf this week and, although with catch-up to do on the leading trio, the Northern Irishman – in tied-15th – will hope to benefit from those finishing strokes of luck heading into the remaining three rounds and that his game will sharpen up in the process.
Tom McKibbin, competing in his first DP World Tour Championship, also signed for a 71 – four birdies, three bogeys – to also stay very much within touching distance, and also with the subplot in his case of trying to move into contention for one of the 10 PGA Tour cards that will be awarded to players not already exempt to play stateside.
Shane Lowry – like McIlroy playing for the first time since the Ryder Cup – opened his championship with a level-par 72, rolling in a 20-footer for birdie on the 18th to lie in tied-24th.
