Now Rory’s clubs go missing

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April 15, 2011

Just days after his Masters meltdown, Rory McIlroy has arrived in Malaysia to find his clubs missing.

Just days after his Masters meltdown, Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy has arrived in Malaysia ahead of the Open to find his clubs missing.

The 21-year-old’s game came apart on the final round in Augusta on Sunday after he had led at unforgiving Augusta National for the first three rounds.

Keeping his head held high, McIlroy said he would learn vital lessons from his 2011 Masters experience but now this. The luckless youngster has arrived on the other side of the world only to find his clubs have gone missing.

“It hasn’t happened often, its one of these things you can’t help; going through so many time zones and so many connecting flights, your bags are going to get lost sometimes,” McIlroy said..

“Hopefully they’ll turn up tonight and I’ll be ready to go tomorrow.

Asked about his arduous journey to Kuala Lumpur with a beaming Masters champion Charl Schwartzel, McIlroy said: “It was fine. I’ve known Charl a long time and I’m happy for him, genuinely, he played great on Sunday. To go out and shoot 66 on the final day of the Masters to win was a great performance.”

McIlroy said he had time to reflect on his horror show on Sunday during the long trip from Augusta to Kuala Lumpur.

“I’m really just looking at the positives,” McIlroy said. “I led that golf tournament for 63 holes, and that’s really all I can look at. Everyone’s going to have bad days – mine just happened probably on the most important day of my golfing career!

“But I’m a very positive person, I know I’ll get over it. When I get back in that position, if I have learned from it, I won’t let it happen again.

“It’s very hard to keep yourself in the present and not to think about it at all. Not think about winning, not think about putting on that green jacket or walking up the last (fairway) with a two or three-shot lead.

“If I was giving advice to somebody in that position I’d say don’t read newspapers, don’t look at the TV, don’t do anything like that. It’s easy to say, ‘He’s got a four-shot lead’… but it’s a lot easier said than done.”

Schwartzel meanwhile had nothing but praise for McIlroy, as he described their conversations on the long trip to Malaysia via New York and London.

“All the respect to Rory, he seems fine. Rory is just such a good guy, he seemed to get over things very quickly,” Schwartzel said.

“Obviously, I think deep down he must be hurting a little bit but he’s 100 percent fine. He seems to get over it and he’s by far a good enough player to win lots of majors, lots of them.”

Note: At the time of this posting it was not clear if McIlroy’s clubs had turned up or if he was playing with a replacement set in Thursday first round.

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