Four-time Major winning Rory McIlroy has saved himself $20,000 with a simple apology on live TV

McIlroy hit the headlines in March when he hurled his 3-iron into a lake at Doral during the WGC-Cadillac Championship in suburban Miami.

Rory McIlroy about to send his Nike 3-iron 60 yards into the water during the second round of the WGC – Cadillac Championship;

The PGA Tour will never reveal how much players are fined for such incidents, but McIlroy confirmed: “The fine was reduced from $25,000 to $5,000 because I said I was sorry on the TV interview afterwards.”

McIlroy’s stats were produced by the team at Santander Spendlytics, who have developed an iOS app which tells customers how much they spend on their debit and credit cards, and where they spend it.

Despite suffering an ankle ligament injury which prevented him defending his Open Championship title at St Andrews, McIlroy had just 18 full days off in 2015 and spent 287 nights away from home.

The Co Down man admits he has considered copying Paul Casey in concentrating solely on the PGA Tour, a move which will make Casey ineligible for the Ryder Cup unless he rejoins the European Tour. But the world number three added: “I’ve contemplated it in the future but will I ever do it? Probably not. I feel like I owe a lot to the European Tour, they gave me a lot of playing opportunities at the start of my career and I’m pretty grateful for that.

“I had a great chat with Keith Pelley this week about some of the plans the European Tour has going forward and I’m excited to be a part of that,” said McIlroy.

“I’m going to be supportive of that. I’m always going to be a European Tour member, I’d say.”