Masters: Rory Mcllroy’s bizarre opening round includes hitting dad with ball

The struggles continued for Rory Mcllroy during the opening round of the 2021 Masters on Thursday as he fired a four-over-par round 76 that included finding water twice, hitting his father with an errant approach shot, and recording just one birdie during a difficult first round of play.

It has been a while since Rory Mcllroy last won a Major, going on six years in fact since he last captured one of golf’s four biggest titles. The Northern-Irishman’s last win at a Major came at the  96th PGA Championship way back in 2014 and it’s hard to believe a player of his talents has endured such a drought.

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This week Rory was hoping to complete the last puzzle piece in his quest for the career grand-slam, and there was some growing sentiment that perhaps that win could come this week when he was coming in a bit under the radar in comparison to recent years. One of the reason’s why he was going a bit overlooked at this year’s Masters was his form in the build-up to this week was anything but ideal.

Mcllroy has struggled to put four good rounds together for the longest period of time now, and just like last year’s Autumn edition of the Masters a poor opening round looks like it will derail his chances once more. The four-time Major Champion started Thursday’s opening round well enough as he kept a clean score-card through his first four holes under difficult conditions at Augusta National.

Then on his 5th hole of the day, things began to unravel for Mcllroy once again as he would go on to bogey the first of three consecutive holes where he recorded an over par result.

Then the bizarre happened on Mcllroy’s 7th hole of the day

Mcllroy’s misery was compounded on the PAR 4 7th hole as his errant approach shot struck his father in the leg who was amongst the patrons watching his son, if that wasn’t the clearest sign of where Rory’s game is at, I don’t know what is.

This bizarre occurrence was not the first time an errant shot from Mcllroy has ended up in a peculiar location, a couple of week’s ago one of Mcllroy’s tee-shots ended up in a nearby residents pool after hooking wide left during the WGC Dell Technologies Match Play event in Austin, Texas.

Thankfully father Gerry Mcllroy was fine after being struck by the golf ball.

One would think that would have been the low-point of Mcllroy’s round but Rory continued to suffer the consequences of his inaccuracies with both the Driver and his Iron shots as he went on to find the water on both his 11th and 13th holes, and as a result, recorded another two bogeys before finally getting one shot back when he made his first birdie of the day on the 15th.

Despite the 76 he recorded on Thursday Mcllroy was able to take some positives from his opening round, and when asked about some of the quality shots he hit, Mcllroy responded:

"There was a few.  The wedge shot on 14 — the drive on 14, wedge shot on 14, drive on 15, 7-iron on 15, 9-iron on 16, drive on 18, second shot into 18.  So there was some — I was starting to get into a rhythm.  I wish I could have kept going.  Might have given myself a few more chances.  But there were some good shots coming down the stretch there."

After making comments about his process being a “Journey” before the Masters began this year, Rory will be able to maintain that focus when looking back on the few quality shots he hit on Thursday during what can only be described as a disappointing and bizarre opening round overall.