Rory McIlroy opened his Irish Open account with a round of one-under par 71 at The K Club.
McIlroy sits five shots off the lead held by Nacho Elvira, Thorbjorn Olesen and Romain Langasque, with three rounds still to play at the Irish Open.
The 36-year-old will be looking to find some form this week, with the Ryder Cup looming large on the horizon.
McIlroy was encouraged with how he played on day one of the Irish Open, and he will be keen to fire a round in the mid-60s on Friday to get back into contention at The K Club.
The Northern Irishman finished his round in disappointing fashion after bogeying two of his final three holes.
McIlroy is already in a confident mood ahead of the Ryder Cup, but he’ll be desperate for a strong showing this week as he looks to build up some confidence ahead of the showdown with the United States at Bethpage Black.
However, things didn’t quite go to plan for him on day one at The K Club, and he wasn’t happy at all about it.
Rory McIlroy complains after what happened on day one of the Irish Open
McIlroy wasn’t overly impressed with the way that he finished off his opening round at The K Club on Thursday, understandably so.
The sloppy way in which he bogeyed his 16th and 17th holes of the day would have angered him immensely.
However, McIlroy talked about another big problem he had at the Irish Open, and it had nothing to do with his golf game.
He said: “I got frustrated the last few holes because I felt a bit rushed. 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.
“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. Any time I either come back to this tour or I play in some of those 1, 2, 3 groups, we are always put on the clock for the same reason. It happened at the Players and I lost my sh!t with an official.”
McIlroy is spot on here. He is always in marquee groupings during the first round of tournaments, and that comes with larger crowds and more distractions.
As we all know, he is a really quick player too, by tour standards at least. McIlroy is spot on, more common sense is required moving forward.
Rory McIlroy on a shot clock potentially being used in professional golf
Back in January, McIlroy was asked about the slow play problem which is currently plaguing professional golf.
He was asked whether a shot clock could be brought in to help eradicate the pace of play issues.
“The MLB introduced a pitch clock at the start of last season, and that seemed to work pretty well,” McIlroy said. “It’s going to be — you can try to introduce it, but how’s it governed, that’s a very hard thing to do for every single group on the golf course. Golf is — there’s a lot of things about golf that are very different than other sports, but I think that’s what makes it unique. I don’t think we should try to dumb down golf to appeal to more people. Golf is golf at the end of the day. It’s been this way for hundreds of years.”
That’s a fair assessment from McIlroy but if the pace of play does not improve, shot clocks may well be the only answer.
The main concern for the PGA Tour, the DP World Tour, LIV Golf and all other tours worldwide will be that the younger generation may begin to switch off, if the pace of play continues along its current trajectory.
Something has to change, there’s no doubt about that.
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