Rory McIlroy produced an early contender for golf shot of the year as he escaped from the trees with a miraculous par in the first round of the WM Phoenix Open.
World no.1 McIlroy is playing the newly-elevated PGA Tour event at TPC Scottsdale for just the second time this week as he negotiates the raucous crowds that have made the tournament so iconic and a course he has admitted he does not enjoy playing.
It was a mixed first round for the Northern Irishman, who overcame LIV Golf rival Patrick Reed in an epic battle at the Dubai Desert Classic to win on his first start of the year last month.
McIlroy, playing alongside Collin Morikawa and Hideki Matsuyama, carded four bogeys and two birdies for a two-over 73 in challenging conditions, but it was his second shot on his 11th hole that caught the eye as huge galleries followed his group.
The 33-year-old underlined his status as the best player in the world with an audacious escape that had been described as "impossible" by fans on social media.
After starting on the 10th, McIlroy was in serious trouble at +1 on the 2nd and looked like he might have to reload from the tee as he sliced a driver almost out of bounds.
But, after the ball rested up just a foot from a fence, McIlroy saw a window of opportunity 128 yards from the green. He adjusted his swing, managing to carve an incredible draw through the trees and landing the ball pin high, around 40 feet from the hole.
He went on to make a two-putt par, and fans on social media were bewildered by his moment of genius. "McIlroy has just played a shot that I would have been fairly certain was impossible," Sky Sports News golf correspondent Jamie Weir wrote on Twitter.
"Rory McIlroy is not human. Completely disregarded the laws on physics on this one," golf analyst Amanda Rose added. McIlroy, however, predictably didn't get caught up in the hype surrounding his outrageous escape as he explained his thought process behind the shot.
“Actually the way I was walking up to my ball, it looked like I didn’t have a backswing, but I didn’t realise the angle, like how far right the green actually was,” McIlroy said. "So I got over it, I was like, OK, I needed to take it a little bit more on the inside than I usually would and sort of just toe it in a little bit.
"But I sort of got lucky because the wind was hard off the left and I needed to hit that hard draw against the wind, and it was the only way to stop it on – that green I feel like is the firmest green on the course, so it was the only way to stop it.
“I got lucky with the tee shot that I had a swing, but I hit a great shot and was delighted to walk away with a par.”
