{"id":434122,"date":"2025-04-13T07:45:18","date_gmt":"2025-04-13T11:45:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/?p=434122"},"modified":"2025-04-23T16:40:20","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T16:40:20","slug":"rory-mcilroy-distracted-at-masters-from-players-slow-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/rory-mcilroy-distracted-at-masters-from-players-slow-play\/","title":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy Distracted At Masters From Player’s Slow Play"},"content":{"rendered":"

One thing about golf that makes it hard to get into as a spectator is slow-play.\u00a0 The time some players take to carefully line up their shots can be grating.\u00a0 It drags out the game, creates long spans where nothing happens, and wastes the time of the other players.\u00a0 Rory McIlroy felt this during the first round of the Masters when his streak for the event was ruined by a bogey. Despite turning things around in round two and a hot start on Saturday, clearly some players are extremely distracted.<\/span><\/p>\n

Slow-play At The Masters<\/span><\/h2>\n

During the Masters’ first round, McIlroy was playing with rising star Akshay Bhatia<\/a>.\u00a0 All was well on the surface, except that Bhatia was taking his time.\u00a0 One shot took three minutes to line up and finally hit it.\u00a0 Commentator Paul McGinley blamed this for McIlroy\u2019s performance, saying he was distracted.\u00a0 McGinely elaborated in an interview with Sky Sports<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think he got distracted.\u00a0 It took him a long time to play that pitch shot.\u00a0 His playing partner, Akshay Bhatia, put his second in the water.\u00a0 He took ages to play his shot\u2026he took about 10 practice swings, so A hit took a long time.\u00a0 Then B his ball landed in Rory\u2019s line, so he had to wait for him to walk around the lake to mark his ball.\u00a0 Then, he had to wait for the players to walk off the 16th tee.\u00a0 So he ended up waiting five minutes to play his shot.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

McGinley goes on to say that McIlroy is a quick player and likes to get his shots out as soon as possible before moving on to the next.\u00a0 For someone who plays fast, it is very distracting to see other players take all the time in the world.\u00a0 McGinley also made sure to put the blame on McIlroy\u2019s shoulders for being impatient.\u00a0 He made sure to mention how great players need to keep their concentration no matter what happens.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Slow-Play In The PGA<\/span><\/h2>\n

This brings back the talk around slow-play. McIlroy should have kept his focus, but Bhatia should not have taken so long to make a shot.\u00a0 The PGA has looked into ways to crack down on slow play<\/a>.\u00a0 There are rules to penalize players who take too long, but slow play persists.\u00a0 There are experimental rules this season, but after seeing Bhatia\u2019s performance, they may need to be tightened.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Currently, Bhatia is facing a lot of criticism for his slow play and is getting some blame for breaking McIlroy\u2019s concentration.\u00a0 As to whether or not he will get penalized is yet to be seen.\u00a0 A criticism of the slow play crackdown is how it is not enforced too well, which has annoyed fans.<\/span><\/p>\n

What This Means For McIlroy<\/h2>\n

Rory McIlroy finished seven shots behind the lead player, Justin Rose<\/a>.\u00a0 Bhatia faired well, hitting three birdies in a row.\u00a0 How impacting slow play is on the game’s top players, is debatable. Still, it needs to be addressed for future events. If not for the players, at least for the fans. After all, golf is still a spectator sport.\u00a0 While McIlroy has since recovered his lead and is looking to secure his green jacket, fans want to see him at his best.<\/span><\/p>\n

Main Photo Credit:\u00a0 \u00a9 Katie Goodale-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One thing about golf that makes it hard to get into as a spectator is slow-play.\u00a0 The time some players take to carefully line up their shots can be grating.\u00a0 It drags out the game, creates long spans where nothing happens, and wastes the time of the other players.\u00a0 Rory McIlroy felt this during the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4860,"featured_media":434123,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15,246,19],"tags":[34,22],"class_list":["post-434122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf","category-golf-news","category-pga","tag-rory-mcilroy","tag-the-masters"],"modified_by":"yobodev","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4860"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}