Rory McIlroy’s St. Patrick’s Day celebration turned an embarrassing bright shade of red after an errant day with the driver in an opening round three over par 75 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill in suburban Orlando.
The World No. 2 ranked McIlroy, who trails World No. 3 Jason Day by nine shots, was off to a horror start sending his opening tee shot out-of-bounds and into the confines of the practice range down the left side of the opening fairway.
McIlroy reloaded but the resultant double-bogey seem to set the tone for the round with the four-time Major winner finding water left at the third but scrambling superbly to save par in holing an 18-footer.
Rory McIlroy, dressed in St. Patrick’s Day green, watches his shot during first round 2016 Arnold Palmer.
He played the sixth in text-book manner sending his drive 287-yards across water and then clearly the same patch of water with his second, and then two-putt from 12 feet for a first birdie.
However, McIlroy was back in the doldrums again making a splash, and this time short of the green at the eighth and posting a second double bogey to slump to three over par.
He did birdied the 12th but a bogey at 13 followed by five closing pars was nothing to cheer about, and with so many out supporting McIlroy also dressed in green of some sorts or another.
“It was a rotten way to start and then I started missing a lot of shots left, and I haven’t been doing that all at over the recent weeks or even last week in practice,” he said.
“To miss one left at the first hole I thought was just a bad swing and didn’t think anything of it but then I hit one left on three, on four and then missed a few more left.
“So I am going to spend some time on the range in what daylight is left and figure out what is going on.”
