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Rory McIlroy has signed autographs and found fans much calmer in practice rounds. (EPA Images pic)
\nSOUTHAMPTON: Rory McIlroy is getting better treatment from Long Island golf fans at the US Open than he did at last year\u2019s Ryder Cup and adds he\u2019s confident Shinnecock will not lose the course.<\/p>\n
The six-time major winner from Northern Ireland said Tuesday fans at Shinnecock have been fine after McIlroy was profanely heckled beyond reason at the Ryder Cup last September just down the road at Bethpage Black.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Ryder Cup is us versus them, very partisan. It\u2019s just a different beast,\u201d McIlroy said. \u201cWas it a rough week for me at times? Absolutely. If that\u2019s a price to pay to live the life I\u2019m living, then I\u2019m OK with that.\u201d<\/p>\n
World number two McIlroy has signed autographs and found fans much calmer in practice rounds.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was great. It was amazing. Look, New York is New York, and they\u2019re going to make their voices heard,\u201d he said. \u201cBut that\u2019s a good thing. That\u2019s a good atmosphere to play in.\u201d<\/p>\n
McIlroy, 37, also said he has no worries Shinnecock course managers will \u201close the course\u201d as many players complained was done in 2004 and 2018, the past two times Shinnecock hosted the US Open.<\/p>\n
Green speeds were so fast balls would not stay on the greens, with gusting winds taking a toll also, forcing groundskeepers to water greens between groups.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve seen what\u2019s happened here the last two US Opens. It doesn\u2019t need to get that fast to play incredibly difficult and challenging,\u201d McIlroy said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the week goes on, you have the ability for the course to get firmer and faster \u2014 with this golf course, only up until a certain point.\u201d<\/p>\n
McIlroy warned greens are already so fast they might require slowing before expected high winds for Thursday\u2019s opening round.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey certainly don\u2019t need to be any faster,\u201d McIlroy said. \u201cWith the wind they are expecting on Thursday, it seems they would want to get the greens back, just because of how heavy the wind is gong to be, gusts 35-40 mph.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were only gusts of 25-30 yesterday and balls wouldn\u2019t stand on the 11th green. That\u2019s where you just have to use a little bit of caution.\u201d<\/p>\n
Organizers plan to water greens between groups on Thursday and Friday before the cut to ensure both draw halves face the same test.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou want to try to protect the competitive integrity of the tournament and try to make it somewhat fair for everyone,\u201d said McIlroy.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt least they have time, if they need to put a lot of water on the golf course early, and then they let it sort of naturally dry out as the day goes on, they have the ability to do that at the weekend, which I think makes life a little bit easier for them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThursday-Friday, they\u2019re just going to have to manage a little bit better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Members told McIlroy that Shinnecock greens usually gets watered in the early afternoon as they will be Thursday and Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I first heard of it, my first reaction was, that\u2019s stupid, why are they doing that?\u201d McIlroy said. \u201cThen once you actually listen and you\u2019ve let them break it down to you, you\u2019re like, yeah, that makes sense.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt seems like it\u2019s just something they have to do. My concern was you don\u2019t want to look as if you\u2019ve lost the golf course and you\u2019re starting to put water on it, which is I don\u2019t think what they\u2019re going to do.<\/p>\n
\u201cEspecially with the heaviness of the wind on Thursday, it\u2019s probably prudent to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy has signed autographs and found fans much calmer in practice rounds. (EPA Images pic) SOUTHAMPTON: Rory…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22114,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[9140,456,1987,9141,2022,2263,399,1037],"class_list":["post-22113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rory-mcilroy","tag-calmer","tag-course","tag-fans","tag-lost","tag-mcilroy","tag-no","tag-rory-mcilroy","tag-us-open"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22113\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}