PEBBLE BEACH, CALIFORNIA | When Rory McIlroy stepped onto the sixth green, his 15th after starting on the back nine, at Spyglass Hill on Thursday afternoon, the sun had popped through the shroud of clouds that had dumped nearly 2 inches of rain in 24 hours on this gorgeous corner of the globe and McIlroy held the early lead at 6-under par in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.
There was a gleam to the golf after days of serious discussion about business matters and McIlroy, who finished second and first in two DP World Tour events in Dubai last month, was doing Rory things.
A three-putt bogey from long distance snapped McIlroy’s run of three straight birdies, but it was easy to excuse.
At the downhill par-5 seventh, McIlroy tugged his tee shot left and paused on the tee until a marshal assured him that his ball had been located. After much deliberation and no real shot from the base of a gnarly fir tree, McIlroy elected to take a penalty drop.
He followed the rules as they were in 2019 when he was allowed to go as far back as he wanted and drop within one club length of that line on either side. It wasn’t until later – after McIlroy had made what he thought was a bogey – that he learned the rule had been amended last year, requiring the drop to stay on a direct line with the hole. What he did was a violation (Rule 19.2b: “Unplayable Ball: Back-on-the-Line Relief”), turning his 6 into an 8.
All the while, his professional playing competitor Ludvig Åberg was making the game look impossibly simple, hitting driver, 5-iron into the green and then dunking a 30-foot eagle putt, every bit of it looking as easy as eating lunch.
Meanwhile, McIlroy, who can conjure momentum to life in the blink of an eye, couldn’t finish fast enough. His approach shot into the uphill par-4 eighth green went to the back of the two-tiered green with the hole cut in the front. His first putt rolled off the green and back into the fairway, he pitched to 10 feet and limited the damage by making the putt for bogey.
By the time, McIlroy saved par on his final hole, he was signing for a 1-under par 71 that felt like wasting free tickets to a good show. The good news was that the sun was still shining.
“There’s a lot of good stuff in there,” McIlroy said afterward, his hands stuffed into his pockets and his mind seemingly racing through how it got away so quickly.
“It was just one of those – I just let it – I had a really good score and then just sort of let it get away from me those last few holes.”
No reason to sound any alarms, but it was a jarring reversal for the biggest star in the most star-packed field in the still-young PGA Tour season.
Someone else could have done what McIlroy did Thursday in the 80-player, $20 million “signature event” and it might have gone relatively unnoticed, but everything McIlroy does on the golf course seems to be one size bigger.
He has committed to a busy schedule already, playing five more events before the Masters. McIlroy feels that good about his game and, free of the demands of being a member of the PGA Tour Policy Board, he has fewer distractions.
“I’d say the golf I played while I was on the Policy Board was pretty good, too.” – Rory McIlroy
If there is a direct correlation between his fast start in 2024 and his decision to leave the Policy Board last year, McIlroy brushed it aside Thursday.
“I’d say the golf I played while I was on the Policy Board was pretty good, too,” he said, alluding to his four PGA Tour wins, including a FedEx Cup trophy, in the previous two years.
McIlroy’s voice still carries across the game and, given all that has transpired in recent days, his opinion resonates. He has taken a noticeably softer, more conciliatory tone toward LIV Golf in recent months and went so far on Tuesday to suggest that players who took the Saudi money should be allowed to rejoin the PGA Tour without penalty when and if an agreement between the two groups is reached.
That’s McIlroy’s thought, anyway.
“I could name some guys with the same viewpoint; I could name some guys with a totally opposite viewpoint,” said Jordan Spieth, a Policy Board member.
The announcement that the PGA Tour had struck a multibillion-dollar deal with Strategic Sports Group to help fund the tour’s for-profit side didn’t require McIlroy’s official sign-off, but he had a sense of what was coming. His future TGL team is being funded in large part by John Henry, the principal in Fenway Sports Group and, consequently, one of the front men of SSG.
“It’s a wonderful group of people that have got tons of experience in sports ownership over the past 30 years,” McIlroy said. “I’ve gotten to know those guys pretty well, especially the Fenway consortium. They’re a great group of people and have the best intentions for the game of golf, which is great. Yeah, I felt it was good news.”
As he was leaving Spyglass Hill on Thursday afternoon, McIlroy stopped to be introduced to a young fan who was dressed in full golf attire – light blue quarter-zip, gray five-pocket pants and a red rope cap. McIlroy leaned in to talk to the youngster, and they chatted for a few moments.
A soft ending to a hard landing.