{"id":44441,"date":"2025-09-05T02:19:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T02:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/44441\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T02:19:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T02:19:11","slug":"rory-mcilroy-left-frustrated-as-three-lead-on-mixed-weather-day-at-irish-open-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/44441\/","title":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy left frustrated as three lead on mixed weather day at Irish Open \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Through all of the frustrations of a weather day which didn\u2019t know whether it was coming or going, the dark clouds with silver linings contriving to douse players with heavy downpours before providing sporadic spells of sunshine, three men \u2013 Nacho Elvira, Thorbjorn Olesen and Romain Langasque \u2013 managed to make sense of it all with opening rounds of six-under-par 66s to share the first-round lead in the Amgen Irish Open<\/a> on the Palmer Course.<\/p>\n

For sure, the elements \u2013 with a near hour-long suspension in play at one juncture due to the sound of thunder and the threat of lightning in the air \u2013 contrived to pose an added examination to a course with stern questions of its own, most notably on the par 4 seventh which, as it has done through the years in hosting previous DP World Tour events, played as the toughest of all, on this occasion half a stroke above its par.<\/p>\n

Aside from the contrary weather, there were other exasperations at play for players. In the case of Rory McIlroy<\/a>, it was the coming and going of rules officials who put his group \u2013 which also included Thriston Lawrence and Krisstoffer Reitan \u2013 on the clock not once but twice, a factor the Masters champion attributed to dropping two shots in his final two holes in signing for a one-under 71, five off the pace set by the Spaniard, the Dane and the South African.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just let it agitate me a little bit,\u201d said McIlroy of believing he was \u201crushed\u201d in making shots when put on the clock, expanding: \u201cI feel like any time I either come back to Europe or I play in some of these like [number] one- two- three- in the world-type groups, we\u2019re always put on the clock for that reason.<\/p>\n

\"RoryRory McIlroy. Photograph: Bryan Keane\/Inpho <\/p>\n

\u201cI got a little frustrated the last few holes because I feel like it always happens and I don\u2019t think they use sort of common sense in terms of, well, of course we\u2019re going to lose ground because we\u2019re going to have to wait on crowds and wait on the two camera crews that are out there. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, there\u2019s just a lot more going on with our group than any of the other groups on the course, and sometimes I feel like they have to give us a little bit of leeway and use a bit of common sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, McIlroy at least managed to remain under par for his round, joined on 71 by Tom McKibbin, while Shane Lowry\u2019s three-under 69 saw the Offalyman \u2013 still on the high of getting one of Luke Donald\u2019s Team Europe wild card picks for the Ryder Cup at Bethpage later this month \u2013 lead the home challenge, in tied-12th. <\/p>\n

Alex Maguire, playing on a sponsor\u2019s invite, was poised to assume that leading role only for the 24-year-old Meathman \u2013 a player ranked 1,678th in the world and who flits between the Hotel Planner Tour and the Clutch Pro Tour \u2013 to suffer a double bogey six on the seventh, his 16th, where his drive leaked right beyond the out of bounds.<\/p>\n

Maguire parred the eighth to remain on two-under but never got to finish his round, however, as darkness cut him short. Maguire\u2019s drive to the ninth fairway was a good one, safely down the middle, but darkness forced play to be suspended for the only group left on the course with unfinished business to be completed.<\/p>\n

The water, lakes and river, acted like magnets for many, among them Lawrence \u2013 winner of the European Masters in the Alps just last Sunday \u2013 who was brought back down to earth in signing for an 81, which included hitting his tee shot in the river Liffey on the par 3 eighth while Calum Hill hit two tee shots into the river off the 17th tee in running up an eight there before signing for a 77.<\/p>\n

And S\u00e9amus Power too found the Liffey with his approach to the 17th, resulting in a costly double-bogey six that saw him signing for a level par 72 alongside Robert Moran, who\u2019d earned his exemption in the field through finishing as leading home player in last month\u2019s Irish Challenge.<\/p>\n

Such were the water perils at play, although Olesen \u2013 an eight-time winner on the DP World Tour \u2013 recovered from also finding water on the par 3 third by getting some rub of the green in chipping in twice in his round to join Elvira in a share of the lead.<\/p>\n

Olesen has to go all the way back to the Myrtle Beach Classic on the PGA Tour for his last top 10 anywhere and attributed a break at home following the Danish Championship for his refreshed play: \u201cI feel like I had a tough five months, played a lot of golf. So it was nice to have what I needed, to have two weeks off before this and just get home and spend some time with the family, and recharge a little bit. I felt like I really needed that, and I\u2019m looking forward to the rest of the season.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Elvira \u2013 who was briefly joined in a share of the lead by his younger brother Manuel \u2013 his reward for a more solid driving display was to navigate his way to the top of the leaderboard: \u201cI haven\u2019t been able to hit it very straight lately. When my iron play is very solid, when I\u2019m on the fairway, I manage to score. But I\u2019ve been struggling with that lately and hopefully I can keep it on the fairway often.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Through all of the frustrations of a weather day which didn\u2019t know whether it was coming or going,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44442,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[30564,18,19,17,30561,33074,30562,5952,5951,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-44441","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-brooks-koepka","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-irish-open","13":"tag-k-club","14":"tag-padraig-harrington","15":"tag-rory-mcilroy","16":"tag-shane-lowry","17":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}