Remember when Rory McIlroy was almost late at the 2012 Ryder Cup? With Europe trailing 10-6 and needing a fast start, then world number one Rory McIlroy was placed in the top singles match as part of José María Olazábal’s strategy to get some blue on the board. However, as his tee time drew near, McIlroy was nowhere to be found.
It wasn’t long before news broke that, with less than 30 minutes to go, McIlroy was still off-site, having somehow missed the time difference and overslept, and was en route to the course in a police car.
The Northern Irishman later blamed the Golf Channel, as they’d continually stated his tee time against Keegan Bradley was 12:25 – but they meant Eastern Time in the United States, where Medinah, near Chicago, operates on Central Time an hour behind so he was heading out at 11:25.
Oh, and this is also when he met the love of his life, Erica Stoll. Well, it is always players from the European squad who make Americans wait! Luke Donald, who captained the European team at Marco Simone, is again chosen as the skipper for 2025. He appeared in the recent episode of the No Laying Up podcast and surprisingly revealed that Matt Fitzpatrick arrived an hour late to the Gala dinner that was hosted on September 27, 2023, in Rome. Yes, he was not late to the actual tournament, but hey, he did make American golfers wait.
“So we all had police escorts, and somehow he lost him and got stuck in Rome traffic. I mean, it’s, it was 5 pm on a Wednesday with the high traffic, and I don’t know that the driver didn’t know where to go, where to drop him off, and there was a lot of messaging going on, and we’re waiting,” said Donald revealing Fitzy’s story. This caused the American team to think that this entire thing was planned.
“And I think the Americans probably thought we did it on purpose, just to wind them up, because they wait. They got there first, and then they were waiting for us to come and then waiting another hour for Fitzy to arrive before we could do all the team photos and stuff. So it wasn’t on purpose, but yeah, he finally made it, and it was a good story,” added Donald.
While neither Rory McIlroy nor Matt Fitzpatrick was penalized for being almost late or being late to the festivities of the patriotic showdown, recently one of the PGA Tour Pros was hit with the rare penalty.
Mackenzie Hughes penalized with two strokes at the Scottish Open
Mackenzie Hughes entered the penultimate round of the 2024 Genesis Scottish Open in July in contention. He had carded an impressive 66 in both rounds. However, it was a slight mistake on his end, that ruined his entire gameplay. Hughes was scheduled to tee off at 2:45 p.m. local time for his third round at The Renaissance Club. However, he committed one of the biggest faux pas in golf: failing to show up for his appointed start time.
Under the Rules of Golf, any player who misses their tee time or arrives late is disqualified from the event. There are three exceptions, one of which allows for a player to be no more than five minutes late. Fortunately for Hughes, he made it to the first tee just in time, avoiding disqualification. However, he was still penalized with a two-shot deduction, turning his opening par into a double bogey.
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