MELBOURNE, Australia \u2014 Rory McIlroy survived a bizarre encounter with a banana peel lodged in a tree to shoot a 3-under 68 on Saturday at the Australian Open.<\/p>\n
His round left him nine strokes behind leader Danish player Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen, who made birdie putts on the 17th and 18th for a 66 and a 54-hole total of 14-under 199.<\/p>\n
Cam Smith, the 2022 Open champion who ended his streak of missing seven consecutive cuts this year on Friday, also shot 66 Saturday and was tied for second, two strokes off the lead.<\/p>\n
On the par-4 second hole, McIlroy missed the fairway and his ball ended up under a small tree and under a banana peel which had apparently been thrown away by a spectator.<\/p>\n
Golfers are allowed to move loose impediments as long as the player\u2019s ball doesn\u2019t move in the process. If the ball had shifted as a result of trying to move a loose item, the player incurs a penalty.<\/p>\n
So McIlroy tried in vain to hit his ball through the banana peel and the branches and back on to the fairway. But it only traveled about 30 feet and he ended up making a double-bogey 6.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was sort of a double whammy \u2014 it was in the tough grass, and under a banana skin,\u201d McIlroy said. \u201cBut I shouldn\u2019t have been there in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Northern Irishman made birdie on the next hole and after another bogey and birdie to complete the front nine, shot a 1-over 35.<\/p>\n
On the back nine which was played in often steady drizzle, McIlroy had four birdies, including on the final two holes as he had done on Friday, when he also shot 68.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t get off to a great start, but I played well from there,\u201d said McIlroy, who made five birdies on his final 10 holes Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am probably going to be too far behind to challenge tomorrow,\u201d he added. \u201cBut I\u2019d love the course to keep getting firmer and firmer . . . and if it does I think I could go out there and shoot something very low, 8 or 9 under.\u201d<\/p>\n
After all his missed cuts, Smith, with a bit of an edge to his comments, said that it was \u201cnice being in contention.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a while since I\u2019ve had this feeling to be honest,\u201d Smith said. \u201cI love that it\u2019s the Australian Open. I couldn\u2019t think of a better place to get back into form. It would shut a few people up.\u201d<\/p>\n
McIlroy, whose pre-tournament news conference included comments that Royal Melbourne was not the best sandbelt course in the city, had a wild opening round on Thursday containing six bogeys and five birdies.<\/p>\n
McIlroy, the Race to Dubai winner and who completed his career Grand Slam when he won the Masters this year, is making his first appearance at the Australian Open since 2015. He won it in 2013.<\/p>\n
The winner of the Australian Open, which is the second event on the European tour\u2019s new schedule of tournaments for late this year and 2026, receives a Masters exemption next year. And the top three finishers not already exempt will qualify for The Open in 2026 at Royal Birkdale.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MELBOURNE, Australia \u2014 Rory McIlroy survived a bizarre encounter with a banana peel lodged in a tree to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":333729,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-333728","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/333729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}