Rory McIlroy’s 9-iron was snapped Thursday at the 2024 BMW PGA Championship.
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Four times major champion Rory McIlroy shot a five-under 67 in the opening round of this week’s 2024 BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth. But it was a gear incident involving one of McIlroy’s irons that drew questions at his post-round press conference.
McIlroy’s stellar round on Thursday put him atop the leaderboard DP World Tour’s Main Event, but his strong start is all the more impressive given the fact that he was forced to play without a 9-iron for several holes.
So what happened? When playing an approach shot on the par-5 12th hole on Thursday, McIlroy went through with his 9-iron and then suddenly felt the weight of the club disappear during his follow through. It turns out that the club of his 9-iron had flown off the shaft in influence.
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“It was just one of those things. I hit a 9-iron on the 9th hole, and I looked at it and saw if the barrel was coming loose, but it was actually the head coming off the shaft,” McIlroy told reporters after the round. “Obviously I didn’t realize when I hit 12 . Yeah, it was a little weird feeling. I hit it, and you know, you’re obviously waiting for the weight of the club to just go through and there was nothing there.”
Incredibly, despite the fact that his iron exploded on impact, Rory revealed that his shot went as planned anyway.
“Thankfully the ball went where I wanted,” McIlroy said. “It could have been a lot worse, but thankfully it was repaired and I should be good to go tomorrow.”
However, this was not the case immediately after. McIlroy explained that initially the flying ball caught his attention, so he lost the ball in the air. Unable to track it, he decided to look up toward the green, where he saw his ball fall from the sky and land near the hole.
“I don’t think that’s ever happened to me before. Obviously a very strange feeling through impact. I looked up and instead of the golf ball I saw the club head. So I completely lost track of where the golf ball was. I didn’t know where he went,” he explained. “But I was just looking somewhere around the green and I saw the ball drop right off the pin and it went up there and it went very close. Fortunately, it didn’t affect the shooting too much.”
McIlroy also revealed that he was able to repair the iron and put it back in his bag by the time he reached the 16th hole, and although he was missing his 9-iron for a while, he “luckily didn’t need it for any of the holes in the middle.”
After finding his ball on the 12th green, the world No. 3 was able to two-putt for a birdie-four, improving his score to five under at that point. And the incident had no lasting effect, as Rory recorded another birdie at the age of 13.
He will go into Friday’s second round with 14 clubs and within striking distance of the lead.
