McIlroy made a fatal mistake on the PGA Tour
The tournament took place at the Hill Par72 Airport in Orlando with the final round on March 6 local time. That day, McIlroy, when he entered the par3 14 hole, thought he was a club or two behind the top of the table. In that situation, the former world number one thought it was necessary to take a risk to earn points. But actually McIlroy is leading by one stroke with a score of -9.
190 yards from the flag, he used an 8 iron with the intention of sending the ball over the bunker on the left of the green to approach the target on the same side. The result was the ball snagged, in the direction of play, leading to a bogey for McIlroy.
"If I look back on the round, I regret my shot on the 14th hole. When I entered that hole, I thought I was about 1-2 strokes behind. After I finished, I went down to the fairway and looked back at the leaderboard sign. If I had known that in advance, I would have chosen to be safer instead of attacking the flag, "McIlroy said at the end of the match.
This negligence is considered unnecessary for a seasoned Northern Ireland player. McIlroy has gone through 223 PGA Tour tournaments with 23 cups, including four majors and accumulated 122 weeks of being number one in the world (OWGR table).
After bogey on hole 14, McIlroy again bogey on hole 15 and birdie on hole 16. The rest, he kept par. Particularly on hole 18, he had a birdie opportunity when he put the ball on the green in the second shot, 3.3 meters from the target. However, the "one-off" attempt failed, so McIlroy finished -8.
However, this is the pressure for the three candidates behind him and two holes left.
But in this group, only 'underdog' Kurt Kitayama overcame McIlroy, when he birdie on the 17th hole to go -9, thereby becoming the winning milestone. With that result, Kitayama took home $3.6 million for the first time on the PGA Tour, McIlroy received $1.78 million when he returned to T2 with Harris English.
The championship Arnold Palmer Invitational 2023 helped Kitayama move up 27 places, to 19th OWGR. After this tournament, the order of the top 3 from the top remained unchanged, including Jon Rahm, Scottie Scheffler, McIlroy, respectively. The last time McIlroy held the top spot of OWGR was on October 23, 2022, in the position until February 12, 2023.
