wrong. With all his enquiries completed, Rory was not on the golf course.
In fact, McIlroy was still in his hotel room! He had misjudged his tee time by fully one hour. Whatever he was doing in there, he was oblivious to all the missed calls on both his mobile and the room phone at his bedside.
Perhaps he was listening to music on his head phones or taking a shower. When he was finally reached, he got the most almighty shock of his life. The voice on the other end was his manager Conor Ridge who told him he had less than half an hour âtil play.
If he was late, he would forfeit a point to the United States and almost certainly hand the Ryder Cup to them. Forfeiting his match would be a catastrophic disaster not even worth thinking about. A career blighted by infamy.
Rory explained later how he had so clumsily miscalculated his tee time. He told everyone consistently that he had seen his tee time as 12.25. In point of fact, his tee time was 11.25 am. But he was right â he did see 12.25 and this is why:
Most of the major news channels in the US are run by NBC or Fox who have their headquarters in New York City. Any times they give â or have down in information like sub titles and teletext â are in Eastern Time.
ET incorporates 17 US States including the East Coast of Canada. They are one hour ahead of where Rory was in Chicago. He was in Central Time zone. So wherever Rory saw his 12.25 tee time, he read it or heard it from an ET source.
He arrived at 11.14 just as Lawrie and Snedeker were teeing off. As he scrambled out of the Police car, a crowd of American fans saw him and started chanting âCentral Time Zoneâ! He smiled with embarrassment and held his hand up to acknowledge them.
Had his patrol car become stuck in traffic, and Rory arrived on the tee at 11.26 which was one minute after his tee off time, he would still have been allowed to play. But 11.30 or thereafter would have been curtains. Top referee John Paramor explained it to me:
With regard to Rory arriving late on the tee, we would have used Rule 6-3a in the Rule book - loss of first hole up to five minutes and thereafter DQ. We used to use a graduated scale of penalty but that was some time ago.
In other words, Rory not being on time at 11.25 still meant he would have been allocated an additional five minutes for the loss of the first hole â i.e. Bradley 1-up (strokeplay = two-shot penalty). If there was no sign of Rory after five minutes, he would have been disqualified.
Later he told the press corps how he had got there so quickly. He explained:
I was just casually strolling out of my hotel room when I got a phone call saying âyou have 25 minutes to get hereâ. I have never been so worried driving to the course. Luckily there was a state trooper outside who gave me the escort. If not I would not have made it on time. I was putting on my golf shoes in the car beside him.
The warning signs were also there for Rory in a previous escape. Earlier in the season when he won his second major the USPGA by eight shots, there was a weather delay. So he decided to go to his Florida home to sleep and come back later.
In that USPGA at Kiawah Island, he had played nine holes of his third round and so had to play 27 on the last day. So he dashed from Charlotte, South Carolina to his home in Florida.
That 600-mile trip to his plush new $11 million dollar mansion in Palm Beach Gardens, next to the Jack Nicklaus owned âBear Club Golf Clubâ, takes 10 hours by car or two hours flying. He revealed:
Something that people donât know is that I went back home. Everyone was talking about how I showed back about half an hour before my tee time on the last day. I actually had a nap and my dad had to come and wake me up because I overslept. He said to me: âRory, you realise you have to play golf this afternoon.â I didnât know where I was!
Those shaves were really too close for comfort but the buck really
In fact, McIlroy was still in his hotel room! He had misjudged his tee time by fully one hour. Whatever he was doing in there, he was oblivious to all the missed calls on both his mobile and the room phone at his bedside.
Perhaps he was listening to music on his head phones or taking a shower. When he was finally reached, he got the most almighty shock of his life. The voice on the other end was his manager Conor Ridge who told him he had less than half an hour âtil play.
If he was late, he would forfeit a point to the United States and almost certainly hand the Ryder Cup to them. Forfeiting his match would be a catastrophic disaster not even worth thinking about. A career blighted by infamy.
Rory explained later how he had so clumsily miscalculated his tee time. He told everyone consistently that he had seen his tee time as 12.25. In point of fact, his tee time was 11.25 am. But he was right â he did see 12.25 and this is why:
Most of the major news channels in the US are run by NBC or Fox who have their headquarters in New York City. Any times they give â or have down in information like sub titles and teletext â are in Eastern Time.
ET incorporates 17 US States including the East Coast of Canada. They are one hour ahead of where Rory was in Chicago. He was in Central Time zone. So wherever Rory saw his 12.25 tee time, he read it or heard it from an ET source.
He arrived at 11.14 just as Lawrie and Snedeker were teeing off. As he scrambled out of the Police car, a crowd of American fans saw him and started chanting âCentral Time Zoneâ! He smiled with embarrassment and held his hand up to acknowledge them.
Had his patrol car become stuck in traffic, and Rory arrived on the tee at 11.26 which was one minute after his tee off time, he would still have been allowed to play. But 11.30 or thereafter would have been curtains. Top referee John Paramor explained it to me:
With regard to Rory arriving late on the tee, we would have used Rule 6-3a in the Rule book - loss of first hole up to five minutes and thereafter DQ. We used to use a graduated scale of penalty but that was some time ago.
In other words, Rory not being on time at 11.25 still meant he would have been allocated an additional five minutes for the loss of the first hole â i.e. Bradley 1-up (strokeplay = two-shot penalty). If there was no sign of Rory after five minutes, he would have been disqualified.
Later he told the press corps how he had got there so quickly. He explained:
I was just casually strolling out of my hotel room when I got a phone call saying âyou have 25 minutes to get hereâ. I have never been so worried driving to the course. Luckily there was a state trooper outside who gave me the escort. If not I would not have made it on time. I was putting on my golf shoes in the car beside him.
The warning signs were also there for Rory in a previous escape. Earlier in the season when he won his second major the USPGA by eight shots, there was a weather delay. So he decided to go to his Florida home to sleep and come back later.
In that USPGA at Kiawah Island, he had played nine holes of his third round and so had to play 27 on the last day. So he dashed from Charlotte, South Carolina to his home in Florida.
That 600-mile trip to his plush new $11 million dollar mansion in Palm Beach Gardens, next to the Jack Nicklaus owned âBear Club Golf Clubâ, takes 10 hours by car or two hours flying. He revealed:
Something that people donât know is that I went back home. Everyone was talking about how I showed back about half an hour before my tee time on the last day. I actually had a nap and my dad had to come and wake me up because I overslept. He said to me: âRory, you realise you have to play golf this afternoon.â I didnât know where I was!
Those shaves were really too close for comfort but the buck really
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