There’ll be no time issues this time
McIlroy gave his 2012 captain the collywobbles when the Irishman almost missed his tee-time for his Sunday singles match with Keegan Bradley, arriving at the Chicago country club from the team hotel in a police car with minutes to spare and avoiding a match default which would have scuppered the miracle fightback at a very early stage of the final day’s play.
“McIlroy late? It was disbelief,” Olazabal recalled.
“I could not believe my ears. I was on the first tee with Luke [Donald] and Jamie Spence [of the European Tour] calls me and says ‘Olly, we have a problem. Rory is not here’.
“I said ‘he must be around somewhere, on the range’... ‘he is not here’. Oh come on! Jesus Christ! Jamie says he will update me in a few minutes and tells me Rory is in a police car. The officer has called all his colleagues so there is no traffic. All week it usually took us 20 minutes, that morning it took nine minutes.
“I told [McIlroy’s caddie] JP who said ‘know the kid, he is going to be fine’. Couple of minutes later Rory turns up with an energy bar in his mouth, hits a couple of putts and the rest is history.”
McIlroy beat Bradley 2&1 as Europe fought back from a 10-6 overnight deficit to complete the Miracle at Medinah.
Both he and Olazabal are back this week at Gleneagles, the former as world number one and a four-time major champion, the Spaniard serving as an assistant captain to McGinley.
The captain does not foresee a repeat of the incident, particularly with the team hotel on site in Scotland.
“The good thing about this week is that if somebody is late, they can roll out of bed to the first tee within five minutes,” McGinley said.
“But no, we are on top of that. That was a big learning curve for everybody I think in Medinah, none more so than Rory, and certainly won’t happen this year.
“We certainly have procedures in place in order for that not to happen.”
