Baffled Rory McIlroy hits TWO balls with ONE shot in incredible never-seen-before incident at The Open
The Northern Irishman, 36, made a stunning start to his third round at Portrush with three birdies in his opening four holes.
Advertisement
2
Rory McIlroy hit two balls with one shot on the 11th hole
Credit: Sky Sports
2
He picked up the rogue ball that had been lost in the thick grass
Credit: Sky Sports
But on the par-4 11th hole, he somehow managed the bizarre feat.
McIlroy's drive drifted right of the fairway and landed in the heavy rough.
He played his second shot attempting to get it on the green.
But as he whacked his ball out of the thick grass, a second ball popped up from the undergrowth.
Advertisement
READ MORE ON THE OPEN
The rogue ball had been plugged in the grass and lost for goodness knows how long.
It then dropped in front of McIlroy and rolled into his foot as he watched his actual ball fly towards the green.
He looked down to see the unlikely intruder sitting there.
A baffled McIlroy picked up the ball and held it up to the crowd and his caddie.
Advertisement
Most read in Golf
CASINO SPECIAL - BEST CASINO BONUSES FROM £10 DEPOSITS
He said: 'I was on a golf ball.'
McIlroy then tossed the second ball into a bush.
Watch English golf star John Parry nail amazing first hole in one of The Open sparking wild celebrations on tee box
Unfortunately, he went on to drop a shot and record his first bogey of the round.
Advertisement
But McIlroy bounced back on the next hole to sink an eagle.
Golf fans on social media were all talking about the freak incident.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Examiner
an hour ago
- Irish Examiner
Jason Manford on his Irish roots, and how humour kept him out of trouble in Manchester
Jason Manford likely got the performing bug from his mother's side of the family. His maternal grandparents, a folk-singing duo called The Peates, emigrated from Dublin to Manchester in the 1950s. Later, they jumped on the showband wagon. As a kid, Manford, now 44, remembers his grandmother, Nora, playing in Irish bars on Sunday afternoons in the 1980s. 'My memory of those afternoons is sitting under the pool table with me brothers eating crisps hearing my nana singing, Grace or The Fields of Athenry. At some point, my parents worked out that I was able to sing. Nana took a shine to me because of that. As soon as I was able to sing, I'd get up and sing a few songs with her. 'I think, always, I had an idea of what might be funny. From an early age, maybe eight, I used to sing In the Ghetto by Elvis, which is not a funny song, but obviously it's funny because an eight-year-old is singing it. I would try and do a bit of an Elvis impression – the karate kick, a lip curl and shaking the hips. I remember it used to make people laugh. 'My Uncle Michael, the eldest, probably the only one of my uncles and aunties born in Ireland, and the only one with an Irish accent, was hilarious. I loved watching him because he was such a funny performer. He was talented. He did everything – he sang, he played the guitar. He could properly yodel, which is such a funny thing to do. That classic Irish thing where almost the talking between the songs is as entertaining as the songs.' During summer months, Manford came over to Ireland for a couple of weeks' holidays, running amok with his cousins around Templeogue, Dublin. His father is 'very English', so religion wasn't a big part of their lives growing up. He was shocked by how long mass lasted in a Catholic church. 'In C of E, you're in and out,' he says. 'In 25 minutes, he's said his thing. Off you go. In Dublin, it was a case of, 'Are we still here?' It felt like everything in Ireland was a little bit stricter because of the religious element. There were a lot more rules – 'You can't do that,' 'you can't say that' kind of thing. Back in Manchester, things felt a bit more feral.' Jason Manford grew up in Moss Side, near Manchester City's old Maine Road stadium. (Photo by) He adds: 'It's funny, in the UK when I'm on tour, a cousin somewhere or an uncle will occasionally get in touch, and go, 'Oh, Jason, I know you're in Preston this week. I wondered if it's possible to get two tickets. I don't mind paying.' Then I come to Dublin, and I get a phone call from some cousin I've seen three times in me life: 'Jason, can I get 40 tickets?' They ask for all sorts. 'Can you do a meet-and-greet with my girlfriend?' They're not shy about coming forward in Ireland.' Manford grew up on Moss Side, part of inner-city Manchester, home to Manchester City's old stadium, Maine Road. It was a tough neighbourhood, notoriously dubbed 'The Triangle of Death' because of gang violence. Many of Manford's classmates are either dead or in prison. He used his knack for humour as a survival tool. 'Humour was massive for me during my childhood – learning to have a laugh,' he says. 'Learning to laugh at yourself is the most important thing you can learn as a human being. If you don't take things seriously, you're not quick to snap if someone says something provocative. You've always got a way of getting out of things with words rather than actions or being physical. 'If you're funny at school, you can have a laugh with everybody, whether it's the nerds or the bullies. You can get away with things. Bullies didn't pick on me necessarily because I always had something to say, I might be a bit mouthy. Generally, bullies are not good with their words so they wouldn't go toe to toe with you when it comes to arguments, certainly in front of other people or girls. Humour kept me out of trouble. 'Comedy was always something I was interested in. Being witty meant grown-ups noticed me more. The odd teacher noticed me and thought of me for certain things. When I got to high school, our deputy head teacher, Mr. Wiley, if there were any presenting things he needed doing, he would often ask me. Obviously, that's part of the reason my life has shaped the way it is because of someone like him.' Manford was still a teenager when he first did live stand-up in 1999. He was working at a comedy club in Manchester as a glass collector when a comedian booked to perform failed to show up. Manford stepped into the breach and never looked back. He's built an impressive career on the stand-up circuit and is a regular on UK television light entertainment shows. In 2012, Manford made his West End debut in a musical; he's performed lead roles in several musicals, including Jack in Jack and the Beanstalk and Prince Charming in Cinderella. He hasn't yodelled on stage yet, like his Uncle Michael, but his quick-fire comedy chops are always on hand to get him out of a jam if needed. He recalls an incident on stage in Northern Ireland a few years after a 1996 Provisional IRA bombing of city-centre Manchester, close to a shopping centre. 'I remember one of my very early gigs was in Belfast,' he says. 'Belfast now is very different to Belfast around the time coming out of the Northern Ireland Peace Process. We were one of the first sets of English comics to go over and play in the centre of Belfast. There was a guy on, from London before me, and the audience ruined him. I went on, and I said, 'I'm from Manchester.' A guy made a heckle, 'Did you enjoy the bomb?' The whole crowd were like, 'Ooh, that's too far.' I said, 'Well, nobody died, and we got a new NEXT.' That helped to diffuse the situation.' Jason Manford is on a nationwide tour, including Cork's The Everyman, Friday, July 25. See: Jason Manford – Five of his jokes 'Today a man knocked on my door and asked for a small donation towards the local swimming pool. I gave him a glass of water.' 'I spent two years in therapy for my Phil Collins addiction, but I did it. Against all odds. Just take a look at me now.' 'Me and my wife decided we don't want kids. So, if anyone wants them, we can drop them off tomorrow.' 'I don't hate ginger people. Don't get me wrong, I like ginger people. They were the only people who stopped me from getting bullied at school.' ''Do not touch' must be the worst thing to read in braille.'
The Journal
2 hours ago
- The Journal
Rory McIlroy's Portrush gesture completes one man's 19-year journey to replace what was lost
The 42 IT'S MONDAY AFTERNOON in the media centre at Royal Portrush, and for once the question to Rory McIlroy is a little more interesting than the answer. Q: Rory, in 2006 at the Dubai Desert Classic you were a 16-year-old amateur playing with Peter O'Malley and Robert Coles. I was also a 16 year old, and I was also your scorer that day. A: No way! Q: You told me that day that your two goals were to be the World No. 1 golfer and to complete the Grand Slam. When you're an elite golfer as you are, one of the best of the generation and achieve your lifelong dream like that, what is the process of resetting your goals look like? The man asking that question was David Bieleski. He was at the Open for the week as an accredited member of the media, working for the New Zealand-based radio station, Sport Nation. David was born in New Zealand but went to school in Dubai, and it was from this school that volunteers were drawn for the annual Dubai Desert Classic event on the European Tour. As one of the few in his school who actually played golf, the tournament's head scorer usually rewarded him with the marquee group of the event. Rory McIlroy, pictured in 2006. Morgan Treacy / INPHO Morgan Treacy / INPHO / INPHO When he was handed his group in 2006, however, David recognised only two of the three listed names. While he knew tour regulars O'Malley and Coles, he knew nothing of the young amateur. He sought out the head scorer and asked him what was the deal, and was told that he was given the best group on the course, because that young amateur would be the best player in the world some day. As idle conversation unspooled with the round, David asked the young amateur for his ambitions in golf, to which the young amateur replied, slightly abashed, that he wanted to win all four major championships and become world number one. After he completed his round, the young amateur signed his golf ball and handed it to his scorer, a custom he maintains to this day. David pocketed the ball with the sense that this was one worth keeping, and so he and Rory McIlroy went their separate ways. Eight years later, Rory McIlroy was 24 and halfway to fulfilling the ambitions he confessed to his scorer at the Dubai Desert Classic. He had been world number one and had won two major titles, and he'd add another two – one of them a Claret Jug – before that year was out. School days: David Bielski with Lee Westwood during his time as a volunteer at the Dubai Desert Classic. David Bielski David Bielski David Bieleski was 24 too, but dealing with a much nastier lie. He was an alcoholic, and he was homeless too. He returned to Auckland after school, where he lapsed gradually, and then suddenly, into drinking. His alcoholism, he says, did not fit the wrongheaded cliché of a man in a trench coat drinking on a park bench from a paper bag: his was hiding insidiously in plain sight. He didn't drink in the mornings and he didn't drink in public parks. He drank socially, but when he drank, he did so to get drunk. It ticked upwards: he went out three, then four, then five nights a week, tactically going out with different friends or groups of people who would not so easily spot the frequency. He shunned the problems this all threw up, simply drinking more to escape and numb the feeling. The nights of excess gave way to mornings of shame, from which the only escape route was another night of excess. David would wake up, vomit over the toilet, potentially vomit again in the shower, and then muddle through the day before going out again that night to start the cycle all over again. 'It was a constant battle of chasing the feeling and ideal state of being through the use of alcohol,' he says, 'and then being wracked with guilt and shame for having let people down, and then doing it all again as a result.' He struggled to hold down a job, constantly ran short of money, and saw friendships and relationships fray at their seams. Then, in 2014, another night's drinking ended up with David getting into a fight, causing damage to property, and being sent to hospital and a jail cell. This was not the first time his night ended this way, but for the first time, he broke the cycle in the morning. After he was released, David stood in front of the bathroom mirror to wash his face and, for the very first time, he could not look himself in the eye. 'It was a rare moment of clarity,' he says, 'where I realised that I could either keep what I was doing and experiencing similar results, or I could be brave and try something different.' This was one week before the birth of his daughter, and so he resolved that she would never see her father drunk. David went to rehab but ran out of money, and so spent eight months living in a homeless shelter as he bid to get sober. And he did it. Within nine months he got a job as a travel agent, and was soon on a flight from New Zealand to Las Vegas for an awards ceremony as one of the company's top performers. He met a girl, Sophie, and they stayed together when she was posted from Wellington to Christchurch for work. With the added free time, David indulged his old passion for golf. He started blogging, his first post being a 2,000-word preview of, you guessed it, the Dubai Desert Classic. It gained traction, and he continued to blog until he was paid to write about golf, from where he moved into broadcasting with Sport Nation. And so David Bieleski has been sober for more than 11 years. 'The peculiarity with alcoholism is that many people can handle alcohol perfectly well and have the ability to say no or they've had enough,' he says. 'You'd never turn around to a diabetic and wonder if they can have a little bit more sugar. Society struggles to understand that we can't approach alcohol the same way. Advertisement 'If I'm drinking, I'm drinking for the effect and to get drunk. Otherwise, what else is the point? If one drink is good, then six, eight, 12 will be even better. It is a disease, and research estimates around 10% of the population have the genetic predisposition towards alcoholic drinking. I personally believe I always had a predisposition for addiction.' Which brings us to Royal Portrush. At one point along his hard road, David lost the golf ball gifted to him by Rory McIlroy, and once he got sober, his mind became fixated on where it had got to. 'It's something I thought about an unreasonable amount,' he says, 'What has happened to this golf ball? 'That memento reminded me of the happiest times of my life: my childhood.' The lost ball was an emblem of all that which David squandered in his drinking days, and so recovering it might provide a measure of apology to his younger self, and of redemption for the life he hadn't led. He scoured his history to find it. He went back to the places he had lived and stayed during his drinking days, pleading with whomever he found to look for the ball. He returned to the house in which he most suspected he had last seen it, and found his former housemate had died. He was an alcoholic too. It was all to no avail. Nobody knew where it was, and nobody could find it. The ball was lost and that fact seemed to prove that while we can all move on, we cannot always make amends. Earlier this year, Rory McIlroy fulfilled the last promise he made to David Bieleski by winning the final major tournament missing from his collection. McIlroy completed his journey's arc so David figured he might too. He flew to Cornwall, where he proposed to Sophie. Meanwhile, he asked two of his golfing school friends from the Dubai days to travel to Portrush: he told them he was proposing to Sophie beforehand, and he wanted a stag party. And, hey, some live golf is as good an idea as any other for an alcoholic's stag. But while his friends were among the galleries, David had access to the media centre, where his path finally again intertwined with Rory McIlroy. On Sunday evening, McIlroy gave the raucous crowds wreathing the 18th green one final wave and disappeared beneath the grandstands, on his way to the scoring tent and then an interview room with journalists. As McIlroy spoke with us, David peeled away from the pack and spotted Rory's caddie, Harry Diamond, standing outside. He sidled over and plucked up the courage to tell him his story. When McIlroy finished up his media duties, he bounced down the four steps leading to the elevated interview platform and swung right to rejoin Harry and walk back to the clubhouse on their way out of Portrush. As he did so, the PA address system heralding Scottie Scheffler's victory drifted overhead. Harry stood with David and introduced him to Rory. David explained his journey, telling Rory of how he had inspired him to complete his own journey. Harry produced a golf ball and sharpie, and handed both to Rory. Rory signed the golf ball, squeezed David's arm, and then handed it over saying, 'Well then, this one is even better.' David walked away, his knuckles clutched so tight they were as white as the golf ball within them, all the while failing to fight back great, heaving tears. He found a quiet spot and slipped the ball into a Titleist box, to officially begin its transit back to New Zealand, where it will take up residence in his home with Sophie, his daughter and his two cats, whose names are Gary and, of course, Rory. The ball will be set upon a tee, framed and put upon his mantlepiece, where it will stand alongside a picture of McIlroy on his knees on the 18th green at Augusta National that bears the man's own message. Never give up on your dreams. David Bieleski completes his journey with a signed ball from Rory McIlroy. David stayed to listen to Scottie Scheffler's press conference, and quietly agreed with Scheffler's outlook that life is ultimately about identifying the truly important things. I went to listen to Scheffler too, and met David as we were filing our way out of the room. I had seen his interaction with McIlroy and my curiosity had gotten the better of me, and so we sat down to talk. About an hour later, I packed up my bags and as I climbed the hill that led down from the media centre to the back of the 18th green, beneath the honeyed sunset in front of me I saw David Bieleski, arm-in-arm with his two friends, telling them he had a golf ball signed by Rory McIlroy and that, today, he had righted a wrong. You can follow David's work at DeepDiveGolf If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this piece, you can visit Written by Gavin Cooney and originally published on The 42 whose award-winning team produces original content that you won't find anywhere else: on GAA, League of Ireland, women's sport and boxing, as well as our game-changing rugby coverage, all with an Irish eye. Subscribe here .
The Irish Sun
4 hours ago
- The Irish Sun
‘It's one of the best golf courses in the world' – Shane Lowry wants Portmarnock Links Open Championship at Dublin venue
SHANE LOWRY has become the latest big name PGA Tour star to call for an Open Championship at Portmarnock Golf Club. Advertisement 2 Ireland's Shane Lowry wants an Open Championship at Portmarnock in Dublin 2 The stunning Dublin venue hosted the 2019 R&A amateur championship The prestigious major championship has never been held outside the UK but the amateur edition was held at the Dublin links course in 2019. The Irish The Open has only been staged outside England and Scotland on three occasions at Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland. Advertisement READ MORE ON GOLF But the prospect of an Open in the Republic of Ireland has many licking their chops. Now, 2019 Open champion Lowry has joined American stars Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas in calling for an Open at the stunning venue. The Ryder Cup star said: "As regards Portmarnock - I've heard they're talking about it - I've heard it might go there. It would be amazing. "It's 30 minutes from my house, I would be able to stay at home and play in an Open - and I think it's one of the best golf courses in the world. Advertisement Most read in Golf "I think it's good enough to host and Open, and hopefully it will soon." Just last year, three-time major winner Scottie Scheffler wins The Open and kisses wife Meredith in emotional celebrations Speaking on the He reckons it would be incredible with an Irish crowd. Advertisement Speaking on the Smylie Show, he said: "Portmarnock is like a proper standard links, you don't have anything odd or wild that sticks out in a way. "It was the closest to Dublin, so I think that would be incredible if the infrastructure was there, which - I guess they're figuring it out it can be - I mean what a scene that could be. "You know, I think about that Adare Manor Pro-Am, and who showed up - the crowds that showed up there - you know, it was "The Portrush Open [2019 Open Championship] was amazing but if you throw one there [Portmarnock] when you're within a half-hour of Dublin - what a scene that would be. Advertisement "Not to mention, you could have carnage off that first tee."
