MASTERS: Rory McIlroy Apologizes For Dirtying Augusta Member’s Green Jacket

With all of the first-round action finally finished up at Augusta National, you could say that Rory McIlroy had one of the most adventurous days on the course. And he actually dragged some of the Augusta members into his wild day.

When the first round of The Masters kicked off on Thursday, Rory McIlroy had high hopes for his round but ended up fighting and scraping for every score during his round. Much of Rory’s round was plagued by poor drives off the tee that left him at +3 at the end of round one. The most prominent of his poor drives came at the 13th hole.

When Rory stepped up to the tee, he took a huge rip but the ball ended up sailing extremely far to the left. It went so left that Nick Faldo was absolutely dumbfounded, claiming that the ball had to be lost. Dotty Pepper agreed, saying that it would probably be better if the ball actually was lost. But Rory wasn’t so lucky. After navigating his way around Rae’s Creek and deep into the woods, Rory found his ball with almost no time to spare on the three-minute search clock.

Rory’s exact line was, “Sorry for getting your nice green jacket dirty…” pic.twitter.com/uNPVGnbF0n

— Dylan Dethier (@dylan_dethier) November 13, 2020

Rory’s problems didn’t end there though. Once he found the ball, he immediately knew it was unplayable but couldn’t figure out the proper place to drop. So that forced a rules official and an Augusta official to find their way out into the woods to assist him. After discussing and finding a proper drop spot, Rory punched out into the fairway and ended the hole with a double bogey.

The best part, however, is when McIlroy was able to keep his high spirits and apologize to the Augusta official. ESPN microphones picked up the conversation as they walked out of the woods. “Yes, thank you,” he told the member. “Sorry for getting your nice green jacket dirty.” “Ah, no problem,” the member replied.

Perhaps Rory could make it up to him by winning his own green jacket this weekend and trading it with the club member but after that first round, that’s not looking too likely. At the time of this writing, however, Rory is -4 in his second round and inching closer to the lead so there may be hope yet that Rory is finally able to clinch that green jacket and complete his major grand slam.

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