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Rory McIlroy’s hopes of securing victory in his first European Tour event of 2014 suffered a setback in Round Three after a two-stroke penalty left him three adrift of the lead.
The Northern Irishman seemed set to resume the fourth and final day of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship on Sunday just one shy of tournament leader Craig Lee on 11-under par. However, having contravened rule 25-1 with his second shot on the second hole, McIlroy will have to mount his tilt at the title from slightly further back in the penultimate group to tee off instead of the last.
“I hit my second shot on the second hole just into the left rough, but it was in the spectator crosswalk, so I took a drop,” explained McIlroy, who was informed of his moment of misfortune afterwards by Ricardo Gonzalez’s caddie, Dave Renwick, on the 18th. “I didn’t notice my left foot was still on the white line as I played the shot and I needed to take full relief. I didn’t even know my foot was on the line.
“We went out to see it again and where my divot was and it was clear that I couldn’t have played the shot with my feet anywhere else.
“I guess I was just so much into the shot that I didn’t even realise. It was unfortunate. If anything, it was a disadvantage because I dropped it in a bad lie and didn’t make birdie. I hit it to like 15ft and two-putted. The thing is, if I had realised or had I known that my foot was on the line, I would have said: ‘Okay, I need to take full relief. It’s a bad lie anyway, drop it again and I might get a better one.’
“It’s disappointing. I don’t feel like I gained any sort of advantage by my foot being on a bit of white paint. Stuff like this is stupid. There are a lot of stupid rules in golf and this is one of them.” McIlroy understandably cut a forlorn and frustrated figure in the immediate aftermath of this demoralising development.
“It gives me a bit of extra motivation,” he admitted. “I’ll need to get off to a good one tomorrow.”
John Paramor, the Chief Referee on the European Tour, explains Rory McIlroy’s rulebook indiscretion on the second hole:
“Rory’s ball came to rest in a marked gallery crosswalk to the left of the second fairway from which relief is available under the rules, as if it’s a piece of ground under repair.
“He found what he thought to be his nearest point of relief where the ball was outside and when he dropped the ball within a club’s length, when he actually stood to the ball, his left foot was standing on or just over the line demarking the area of ground under repair which is treated as part of the ground under repair. Therefore he has not taken full relief and he is in breach of the Rule 25-1, the penalty for which is two strokes.”
