Rory McIlroy found his errant drive on the par-4 14th hole at East Lake during Friday’s second round of the Tour Championship in a place he would never have considered looking and had no desire to investigate — the pocket of a fan’s shorts.
Rory McIlroy in contention after hitting a ball into a fan’s pocket at Tour Championship
One of Rory McIlroy few wayward shots, his drive on the 14th hole at East Lake on Friday, failed to hit the fairway but he did eventually find his ball — in the pocket of a spectator.
Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports
Toward the end of a nearly error-free day, McIlroy watched his tee shot veer right off the fairway and clip some trees on the way down. When he reached the landing area, he found that the ball had, rather unbelievably, dropped straight down and into the right pocket of a spectator who was trying to get out of the way of the wayward shot.
“It hit up on the tree and ricocheted straight into his pocket,” McIlroy told Brian Wacker after carding a 5-under 65 to get to 6-under and enter the weekend in a three-way tie for second place, two shots back of midway leader Billy Horschel. “I wasn’t going in there. I know how sweaty my pockets are. I’m not going into anyone else’s.”
The world No. 1 shared a few laughs and a handshake with the spectator, who reluctantly returned the ball to its owner. We imagine the golf enthusiast received another Nike RZN Black in place of the one McIlroy flailed into the foliage but a rules official on the scene confirmed Rory had to drop the original “as near as possible to that,” which we took to mean the aforementioned pocket.
Joviality ensued, McIlroy found the green with his approach shot, two-putted for par from 20 feet, finished birdie-birdie, and will play in the final twosome with Horschel on Saturday.
A win on Sunday would be the fourth of the PGA Tour season for the four-time major champion, whose only bogey amid six birdies on a hot, humid day in Atlanta came on the par-4 fourth.
“It would be icing on the cake,” McIlroy said about what it would mean to finish a campaign in which he ran off two straight major Ws — the British Open and PGA Championship — by winning the FedEx Cup. “I wanted to cap it off in style and I’ve given myself a chance to do that over the next two days.”
If the incident on the 14th — similar to a fortuitous break in Scotland in July— is any indication, the golf gods and Lady Luck are on the side of the 25-year-old from Northern Ireland.
“I hit it off someone’s leg at the Scottish Open in Aberdeen,” said a very pleased McIlroy. “I need to stop hitting it off line.
“I was happy,” he said. “That ball could have hit the tree and went anywhere. It hit up on the tree and ricocheted straight into his pocket. I just felt fortunate I was able to drop it there and make a par.”
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