Rory McIlroy emptied Augusta National\u2019s merch store on this item after he won the Masters<\/a><\/p>\nWell, McIlroy\u2019s birdie was far from routine. But it served a purpose. It enabled the two men to complete their opening round of the Tour Championship just seconds before a horn sounded signalling dangerous weather approaching.<\/p>\n
The final twosome on the course, McIlroy and Scheffler both found bunkers in front of the green on the par-5 18th hole. Playing first from 39 yards from the pin, McIlroy caught his ball flush and it went screaming towards the grandstands behind the green. But instead of ending up in the seating area, which would have required a lengthy rules situation including a free drop, his ball bounced off the fa\u00e7ade and onto the green.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cGot a little thin, came out a little faster than obviously I wanted it to, but at that point you\u2019re just hoping that something is going to happen,\u201d said the Masters champion. \u201cAll the TIO [temporary immovable obstruction] lovers are going to love that one on Twitter tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
The world No.2 player just had to make the putt, which he did, prompting him to raise his arm in celebration and then laugh. He looked at Scheffler, who wore a huge smile.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have never rooted so hard for somebody\u2019s ball to come back, outside of my partner in a team event,\u201d said Scheffler, world No.1 and five-time winner this season. \u201cBecause we\u2019re walking to 18 and Bones [NBC broadcaster Jim Mackay] told us they were going to blow [the horn, suspending play] at any second, so I\u2019m watching his ball fly towards the grandstand. I\u2019m like, \u2018Oh, my gosh, we\u2019ve got no way of finishing this thing.\u2019 So I was relieved when I saw it come back on the green.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scheffler, the reigning PGA and British Open champion, also birdied, splashing out of a left-front bunker to four feet and then converting to finish off a 7-under 63, two strokes behind leader Russell Henley. It was his lowest career round at East Lake.<\/p>\n
McIlroy finished with a 66. Undoubtedly, he was equally happy just to have finished at all.<\/p>\n
That turned out to be especially important with tee times moved up more than three hours and beginning at 8am Friday due to more expected afternoon storms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Even Scottie Scheffler had to break out into a broad smile after watching his playing partner, Rory McIlroy,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87339,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":["post-87338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}