Rory McIlroy suffers nightmare start with quadruple bogey at Open Championship
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Home favourite Rory McIlroy suffers nightmare start at the 148th Open Championship
Rory McIlroy was the bookies favourite heading in to the Open this year, but his hopes of contending for his fifth major title took a serious knock after a quadruple bogey eight on the first hole at Royal Portrush on Thursday.
The World No.3 received a roar of applause on the tee but those fans were quickly quietened when he pulled his first shot of this year’s Open out of bounds on the left – cracking a female fan’s phone screen in the process.
McIlroy’s third shot failed to find the fairway from the tee, and after landing his next shot by the greenside fern bushes he was forced to take an unplayable lie.
His sixth was an impressive wedge to the green, but he failed to convert the short putt for triple bogey, and ended up slipping to just one from the bottom of the leaderboard with an eight (+4).
He followed it up with a par at the second, but his tee shot to the par-three 3rd hole ran through the back and a bogey saw him drop him to five-over-par for the tournament.
Click here for the Open leaderboard.
His nightmare start comes after he admitted yesterday that this season was “probably the most consistent period of golf I’ve ever played.” (read full story here)
He was originally priced by the bookies at 8/1, but has now slipped to 40/1.
