CHERRY HILLS VILLAGE — The monster in Rory McIlroy’s nightmares is bigger than two football fields and wears a necklace made of water.
And it’s very real. It’s the 204-yard, par-3 12th hole at Cherry Hills Country Club. It chased McIlroy right out of the BMW Championship.
McIlroy, in Saturday’s third round, four-putted the 12th for a triple bogey. He swore it wouldn’t happen again.
But it almost did. He double-bogeyed the par-3 on Sunday after another four-putt effort.
In the final round, after reaching the green with his tee shot, his troubles began anew.
“On the third putt, I’m thinking, ‘OK, you don’t want to four-putt again,’ ” McIlroy said. “And I actually had a decent-length putt for a four-putt, so …”
McIlroy, the world’s No. 1 golfer, started the day at 3-under par, then got to 6-under with an eagle on No. 7 but didn’t have enough to catch the leaders. He finished at 4-under for the day and 8-under for the tournament, good for a tie for eighth place.
That McIlroy was even sniffing the leaderboard after such trouble on No. 12 was a function of an otherwise solid final round. He earned $232,000.
McIlroy finished the final round in plenty of time to get to the Broncos-Colts game before the opening kickoff.
Another record. Russell Knox’s pro-am round last week with Broncos general manager John Elway paid off Sunday. The Scotsman, who was paired with Cherry Hills member Elway, former Broncos safety John Lynch and Cooper Manning in the pro-am, quietly shot an 8-under 62 on Sunday to tie the competitive course record, which Morgan Hoffmann set Saturday. Knox, who started the final round at 5-over, had eight birdies and no bogeys Sunday.
No. 1 holds up. After all of the talk over the past week of Arnold Palmer’s famous drive on No. 1 to ignite his 1960 U.S. Open victory, the numbers are in. There were 177 attempts at driving the green, and only 10 made it. Of those 10, there was one eagle, eight birdies and one par (McIlroy’s three-putt Friday).
