I’m watching the PGA Championship on dvr delay and just watched Rory McIlroy make an ill-advised, and potentially career ending shot. On the third hole, his ball was in the trees, and up against a root. Rory swung hard with an iron and hit the root, causing his club to wrench from his grasp. The ball kind of squirted out, but didn’t clear the trees. As I’m watching, Rory is obviously in pain, icing the wrist even as he heads to try to get his next shot out of a bunker.
Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. That’s the invincibility of youth.
I’ve been in that situation (in the woods, up against a root) that it’s my natural habitat. Here’s the proper shot: take a three wood and putt hard. There’s no chance of injury, and the ball will scoot under the branches and out of the woods. You can then take your third shot at the flagstick from the fairway.
I’m going to blame his caddy for this one. The caddy should have handed him a wood to putt or a wedge to pitch out sideways and refused to offer another alternative.
Continuing to watch this unfold … where is the adult to tell him its time to quit? Why is he risking further injury?
Apparently its all worked out ok. The medic told him that he wasn’t risking further injury by playing. But that was THREE HOLES LATER. Even if it all turns out to be sound and fury signifying nothing, it still was dumb and some adult (i.e. his caddy) should have stepped in to put an end to it.
Followup. Now much of the golf media is praising McIlroy for gutting it out. I’ll say again. It was dumb. The shot was dumb, and continuing to play was also. Tiger tried to play on a leg that wasn’t quite right and missed most of this season. Rory risked that, and more.
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So far the aftermath is pretty amazing. (he is on 13 or so as I write this) – but it was still dumb.
Today I finished out the third (& final) day of the Memphis Golf Association Amateur. I stunk it up. I also had 2 shots off of roots, yesterday I had one, and normally I have none. At my course if you come up against a root, it is prominent, not one of the ones just barely protuding from the ground. Of the 3, I lightly punched out two of them and took my medicine – and on one of them, because it was near the green and needed to go over a bunker, I used the Niblick lightly, and none of the 3 times was it more than a bogey.
I wish I could say the same for the other holes today. We played Colonial South, where Geiberger shot his 59, and we played at 6900+ yards, it is truly amazing that someone could shoot a 59. It is understandable that the PGA would want the St.Jude at the TPC in Memphis, but Colonial is SO much harder than Southwind. The greens were around a 12.5 today, probably equal or a little faster than they are in Atlanta.