Kick up backside as Rahm gets another rules reprieve

round of the 146th Open Championship at Royal Birkdale. He shares the lead with compatriots Brooks Koepka and Matt Kuchar in Southport.

0 Rory Mcilroy: Battled back doing?’ At that point I mumbled, ‘Whatever’. But it definitely helped. It kept me positive. So he did a great job.”

Fitzgerald has come in for criticism at times in the past, but his intervention on this occasion could prove to be crucial as Mcilroy bids to kickstart his season following some really poor recent performances.

“Thankfully, he’s not had to do it too often, but he’s had to do it a few times and he’s never afraid to do that,” added Mcilroy. “And I feel today it helped a lot more than at other times because I needed something. I was trying to look within myself. But JP kept me positive out there, so that was very much appreciated.

“That got me back in a positive frame of mind. I was thinking, ‘geez, here we go again’, but I just needed to stay patient and stay with it. I didn’t get angry out there at all. I didn’t let my head drop too much. So I kept a good, positive attitude. And it turned around for me, thankfully.”

Saving par at the seventh after he was in danger of slipping to six-over proved a turning point in Mcilroy’s round and he was delighted to then make birdies at the 11th, 15th, 17th and 18th in coming home in 32. “With the weather we’re expecting tomorrow, I still feel I’m in the golf tournament,” he said of wet and windy conditions.

“I’m really happy with what I’ve done this afternoon and, if I go out tomorrow under bad conditions and shoot something in the 60s, I feel like I’ll be right there for the weekend.”

Meanwhile, Spaniard Jon Rahm had a second rules reprieve in three weeks after a two-shot penalty imposed for him moving a thorny vine at the 17th was rescinded, leaving him just four off the lead on 69.

The penalty has been imposed due to it not having been a loose impediment, as Rahm, thought but that was then oveturned after the 22-year-old finished his round.

The world No 7 also escaped punishment in the Irish Open at Portstewart a fortnight ago over a ball-marking incident in the final round.