"Rory McIlroy Snaps Driver, Strips Down"

Rory McIlroy had a wild round on Sunday,  the last day of the BMW Championship. At Colorado's Castle Pines Golf Club,   the ninth hole was where the four-time  major winner's problems started. After hitting his tee shot at the par-four,   the Northern Irishman looked to have a strange  accident when he split his driver in half. With his ball coming to rest on the  bank just above a creek that meanders   down the right side of the fairway and barely  misses the drink, the world No. 3 hit a miss. McIlroy reached over to pick up his  tee, using the club as a crutch,   but it came way beneath him, bending  and breaking, almost sending him flying. Sadly, McIlroy was unable to replace it and had to   play the next nine holes of  his round without a driver. PGA Tour rules let players to swap out broken  clubs for new ones without incurring penalties,   provided that the replacement  doesn't result in a major delay. Following a turbulent few days at the BMW  Championship, the second FedEx Cup playoff   event and the penultimate tournament of the PGA  Tour season, McIlroy experienced the incident. He became enraged earlier on Friday in the   tournament after missing the  17th hole with his tee shot. The 35-year-old, unable to maintain his control,   lost it for a minute and threw his golf club  into the body of water directly in front of him,   causing the audience to erupt in  shock and the water to splash. But on Sunday, it was the PGA Tour  player going out on the water. Having lost a club and having  to take an unusual route,   McIlroy started to undress after misfiring  on his tee shot and just missing the creek. McIlroy had to take off his shoes  and socks for his second shot,   which involved balancing one foot on  a rock and the other in the water. He was able to save par by hitting his  approach shot into the green. He was,   however, 14 strokes behind the lead  as he reached the turn at one over. McIlroy's summer has been challenging despite  coming incredibly close to winning his fifth   major championship this summer. He lost  to Bryson DeChambeau in the US Open final. after failing on two putts in the last moments of  the match to hand the championship to DeChambeau. After missing the cut at The Open, McIlroy managed   to place fifth at the 2024 Olympics in  Paris, just outside of the medal hunt.

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