Rory McIlroy struck it into the water two times Thursday at The PLAYERS Championship and still fired off a 7-under 65.
His tee shot on the par-4 7th produced some debate in between him and his playing partners, Jordan Spieth and Viktor Hovland. He struck a low forecasted shot that appeared to bounce into the water.
The occurrence captured everybody's attention since judgments do not normally take as long as this one did to determine.
That remains in part due to the fact that both Spieth and Hovland questioned whether Rory's take on it was appropriate.
After his round, McIlroy resolved the circumstance.
“It was simply a matter of whether it was above the line or listed below, and I believed I saw it pitch above the line,” McIlroy discussed. “I was determined that I saw it bounce above the red line, however when somebody can be found in and states, ‘Well, somebody believed that it didn't.' You're like– it simply puts some doubt in your mind. Once again, it's up to you to be comfy enough with your choice that you did see what you saw.”
McIlroy took a drop at where he thought the ball crossed the red stakes and into the water. That did not appear to agree with Hovland, as the 2019 PLAYERS promote made it clear he believed the ball had actually crossed even more back towards the tee box.
Spieth was worried over whether or not the ball really bounced listed below the red stakes, and not above it as McIlroy declared it had. That would have made a substantial distinction regarding where McIlroy would then play his 3rd shot.
It didn't assist that the position where the ball entered into the water is not noticeable from the numerous video camera angles utilized to relay the competition. It's basically a blind area.
“I began to question myself a bit,” stated McIlroy. “I resembled, ‘Okay, did I in fact see what I believed I saw?' I imply, as long as– I was comfy, and I was simply making sure that Jordan and Viktor were comfy, too.”
It does not appear that Spieth or Hovland recommended McIlroy did something incorrect. Neither spoke to the media after the round, so one understands for sure how they feel about it.
From the video, however, once they got on the exact same page, both concurred with McIlroy's choice to drop where he did.
Hovland is a stickler for guidelines, as he was associated with a comparable scenario with Daniel Berger at The 2022 PLAYERS Championship. He stayed unfaltering because circumstance, so for him to ultimately concur with McIlroy's choice stated a lot.
If you remember throughout the Berger/Hovland legend in 2022, Gary Young, primary referee that week, actually stood in the middle of where Hovland/Dahmen felt Berger's ball last crossed and where Berger thought it had last crossed and stated “possibly somehwere in the middle here?
