ABU DHABI ALDAR GOLF CHAMPIONSHIP

November 5, 2026

Rory McIlroy

Yas Links

Quick Quotes

Q. First things first, I've got to ask you. You've been in the scorer's hut for quite some time. I understand there's a situation which has caused you to have a 2-shot penalty in the 12th. Can you tell us about what happened?

RORY McILROY: Yeah. They showed me a video from 12. Hit my first chip shot from down on the bottom of the hill, then get up, came back down and rolled into a divot.

And then as I went to sort of just get a feel for the lie, the close-up of the camera, you can see like a little piece of grass around the divot sort of lies down as I put my club down behind the ball, and it doesn't -- I guess the grass doesn't return back to its original position.

And I doubt like -- obviously there's no intent. I play by the rules. I feel like this is never really -- I try to do everything that I can to never end up in these positions.

But just by looking at the video, like it doesn't look -- it doesn't look very good. Obviously that wasn't my intent. I'm just trying to get a feel for the lie. The ball is in a sort of bottom of a sandy divot. I'm trying to feel like if I can get a 54-degree, like, onto the back of the ball, but in the process, this piece of grass has sort of laid down, and it doesn't -- you know, the technical -- I guess the technical term for the rule is if you press down on the piece.

I don't feel like I pressed down. But at the same time, I don't want the perception of, like, people thinking like I got away with something either. So I'm happy to take a 2-shot penalty and move on and move into tomorrow.

Q. Overall, how do you reflect on your day's play?

RORY McILROY: I felt like I played pretty well. It was really like that bad swing on 12 where I missed the green right and made double, which is now a quad. But apart from that, I felt like I hit the ball pretty nicely. Yeah, I hit my irons nice, drove the ball well.

So, yeah, it was a round where I felt like I could have been obviously a lot better, but there was enough encouraging signs in there to go out and hopefully shoot a good one tomorrow.

Q. How much experience in this sort of situation where you're trying to win a championship and also close down the Race to Dubai, what have you learned from past situations you can use this week?

RORY McILROY: Golf tournaments are long. There's a long way to go to the finish line, especially in situations like this where it's not just this week, it's next week as well, and you sort of try to -- they're both their own individual tournaments, but you're almost trying to treat it like any other event, just trying to build on each and every day.

And I felt like I could have got off to a better start today, but as I said, I felt like I saw enough encouraging signs in my game to go in and shoot a good one tomorrow and try to get myself back in the tournament.