Alarm bells ringing for late arrival McIlroy

Whatever you think about Rory McIlroy’s time-keeping, the failure of Team Europe to rouse their leading man made his late arrival at Medinah Country Club yesterday a collective problem.

As news spread through the vast galleries at the first tee box that McIlroy was being whisked along a suburban Chicago freeway to his Ryder Cup singles match with Keegan Bradley, the world No 1’s untroubled bag stood to attention on the practice putting green and the American fans were chanting: “Rory, Rory, where are you? Your tee time is right now,” to the tune of ‘Glory, Glory Hallelujah’.

McIlroy arrived eventually, 10 minutes before his tee time, swiftly going through some warm-up exercises and hitting a couple of practice putts before striding over the bridge to the tee box with three minutes to spare, sporting a sheepish smile as his entrance was greeted by cheers of support and derision in equal measures.

“Not to hit a shot before the singles is quite ridiculous,” Colin Montgomerie said on Sky Sports, later adding on NBC: “This is absolutely ridiculous at this level. Quite unbelievable. How this could happen with the world’s No 1 golfer?”

But the Co. Down man looked as if he hadn’t a care in the world. His first drive of the day went right but he recovered quickly as he and Bradley halved the hole with pars.

It may not have gone according to plan but there appeared to be no harm done by a mix-up explained as confusion over time zones. Watching the Golf Channel in his hotel room, McIlroy saw the tee time for his singles match against Keegan Bradley listed at 12:25pm. Trouble was the time had an ET next to it – Eastern Time. Chicago is in the Central time zone.

“All of the sudden we realised Rory was not here and we started to look for him,” Europe captain Jose Maria Olazabal said. “We finally got a hold of him.”

Why though, the captain or one of his four vice-captains or a team-mate or a European Tour official — and there seem to be dozens of those here this week — had not troubled themselves to make contact with their player before they left the hotel for the golf course is puzzling.

What is for sure, is that McIlroy was not being allowed to forget the drama. As he stood on the second tee, looking out over Lake Kadijah to the green beyond it, a home fan in the gallery shouted: “Wakey, wakey Rory.”